AFTER seeing Saturday’s game cancelled, being stuck in Cheltenham on Monday due to heavy snow and training indoors, Michael Duff admits preparation for tomorrow’s match with Burton Albion have been ‘not ideal.’
The Reds’ game at Oxford United was called off due to a frozen pitch at the weekend. Head coach Duff said: “As soon as we turned up that morning, we saw the pitch was rock hard and never going to thaw out.
“The big main stand covers a third of the pitch all day at this time of year.
“It was a non-starter so they tried to make the decision as early as possible so people didn’t travel.
“I understand people travel over the weekend which is disappointing.
“They gave it the best chance.
“The forecast dropped lower than they expected. We made phonecalls on the Friday and were told it was fully expected to be on.”
Barnsley trained before travelling back up to South Yorkshire.
Duff said: “Oxford generously let us use their training ground and gym.
“It was better than a little circuit in the hotel room which was the other option.”
Duff then went to his home near Cheltenham, a short drive from Oxford, and watched a game on iFollow.
By Monday morning, he was unable to make his usual trip up to Barnsley for training due to nine inches of snow.
Barnsley have been training in the indoor centre at Oakwell as their usual training pitches have been frozen but were due to train on the main Oakwell pitch yesterday and today.
Duff said: “We have not done much training. It’s hard to get on anywhere and we’ve had a bit of sickness going around the squad.
“It’s not ideal to have a couple of weeks without a game but the positive is that it gives people with injuries a bit more time to recover.”
