BARNSLEY play a third home game of the week when they host Darrell Clarke’s former club Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup second round from 3pm.
Reds head coach Clarke was Rovers manager from 2013 to 2018, leading them to two promotions.
It will be the second FA Cup reunion against one of his former clubs this season after the Reds won 3-1 at Port Vale in the first round. Rovers needed extra-time to see off non-league visitors Weston Super Mare with a 3-1 home win.
Whoever wins the game – which will go to penalties on the day if needed – will be in the third round with Premier League clubs. Clarke said: “I am looking forward to it and so are the players. We’re playing against my old team.
“We will just focus on the performance to get the result.
“We have to make sure we’re in the third round first to even think about who we might play.”
The Gas are 14th in League One, six points behind the sixth-placed Reds. This week they won 1-0 at Mansfield Town – ending a three-game winless run – then lost 2-0 at home to Blackpool.They have lost seven of their ten away games in all competitions, winning twice.
Manager Matt Taylor will miss the game due to ‘an ongoing family emergency’ so coaches David Horseman and Wayne Carlisle will be in charge.
Clarke said: “They have had a lot of change in the summer.
“They have invested in the squad and paid good fees for young players.
“They are in mid-table.
“They will want to get to the third round as much as we do.”
While he played virtually a full-strength team at Vale Park in the first round, with no midweek games either side, Clarke could make changes for this game.
It is the middle fixture of a run of five in 14 days and comes before matches against League One high-flyers Wrexham and Birmingham City.
There could potentially be starts for players who have been on the bench in league games.
Clarke said: “There have been positives in our performances and not a lot has changed (in team selection) but it has been game after game.
“So we have to put everything into context and put the best 11 out that we think can win the game.”
Rovers have two former Barnsley players in Luke Thomas and Jack Hunt.
Winger Thomas has not started a league game since September while right-back Hunt is injured.
Barnsley’s only loss in the last 11 meetings – with seven wins – was a 2-1 away defeat when already promoted at the end of the 2018/19 season.
After losing 1-0 at home to the Gas in 1991, they have won their last six home games against them.
That includes a 2-1 victory on September 7 this year when goals by Davis Keillor-Dunn and Adam Phillips secured three points.
That run also contains the only previous FA Cup meeting in 1999 when the Reds won 4-1 in the fifth round thanks to a Craig Hignett hat-trick and a Bruce Dyer goal.
Another game in that run was when Clarke was the away coach in October 2018 and Daniel Stendel’s Reds ran out 2-1 winners.
