Top-scorer Tom Bradshaw will no longer be rotated in and out of the Barnsley side because his goals are too important, says Paul Heckingbottom.
The 25-year-old Wales international netted his tenth of the season from the penalty spot in the 3-1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers on Saturday. Wingers Harvey Barnes, with five goals, and Ryan Hedges, with three, are the next top-scorers while the other strikers Ike Ugbo and Mamadou Thiam each have one goal in 26 combined appearances.
Despite scoring regularly throughout the season, Bradshaw has come off the bench for six of his 20 Championship appearances as Heckingbottom tried to rotate players to keep them fresh.
The head coach told the Chronicle: "Bradders has played his way into being really important for us. We tried to protect him a bit and rotate him more than we would like. But he's become really important for us.
"He may play more minutes now than we would really like. He is one of our players who is a tough character and he's scoring goals. It's a case of saying to him: 'you're the one who is scoring goals, you will play the most.'"
After Bolton, a fourth straight loss, Bradshaw tweeted: "Very disappointing result, not good enough team performance. Stick with us, we'll do everything we can to turn this recent form around and get back to winning ways."
