Flitcroft plan may save Tykes

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When our noisy neighbours loaned us one of their players back in January, I think it’s safe to say most people were bemused.

Flicker said last week that in his opinion the decision by Owls boss Dave Jones to loan us a striker was perhaps because he believed us to be doomed when we were routed at the bottom of the Championship table at the turn of the year, a statement that may come back to haunt the former Cardiff City manager, and with O’Grady’s winning goal against Leicester on Bank Holiday Monday, Flicker’s point may be well justified.

Since O’Grady arrived at Oakwell on January 31, he has netted three goals and claimed a number of assists as the Reds have turned their season around, and we now have a real chance of survival after collecting 22 points, somewhat of a miracle considering we only finished 2012 on a total of 25 points.

It is fair to say that the former Rochdale striker has played his part in our revival, but in my humble opinion, we are showing resilience under Flitcroft which has been missing now for quite some time.

After a thumping in the FA Cup by Manchester City, it would have been easy, with our precarious league position, to lose confidence, but we regained our focus and recorded back-to-back home wins against Brighton and Watford – the latter in particular a hard fought, deserved victory.

Following that we then travelled to Hillsborough, without the ineligible O’Grady I might add, and had Wednesday record a league double over us, which again could have knocked the stuffing out of us, but just two days later we bounced back yet again against another team chasing promotion in the form of Leicester City.

That victory was our sixth at home under the guidance of our new manager, having only secured two previously, and it will give us the momentum to continue the good run as Charlton Athletic, Derby County and Hull City are the three remaining teams to visit.

The three-point Easter weekend has left us fifth bottom, where we began it; however there are four teams on 47 points who are separated by goal difference alone. An interesting statistic which only goes to prove that it will be a lot harder to get out of trouble this season, is that thanks to our sixth home wins since the change in manager we are now on 47 points with seven games left to play, whereas we stayed up last campaign by eight points and only finished on with 48 points in total.