Barnsley are preparing to face Birmingham City, eager to build on their draw against Sheffield Wednesday from the weekend, which halted a run of four straight defeats in all competitions.

The Tykes saw a mini-resurgence under Gerhard Struber come to an end around the festive period in which they have seen the gap to safety stretch to eight points following the draw against the Owls on Saturday afternoon.

Barnsley did well to come back from an early setback against Wednesday when Cauley Woodrow latched onto a poor clearance from Wednesday’s Cameron Dawson, curling in from range into an open goal to earn the home side a share of the spoils at Oakwell.

All in all, Barnsley could take a lot of positives from a solid home performance against a local rival who harbour ambitions of getting back towards the play-off picture in the coming weeks.

Up next is another home clash at Oakwell when they welcome Birmingham City to South Yorkshire, eager to make up for their 2-0 defeat to the Blues at St. Andrew’s earlier in the season.

Here is the side we expect manager Gerhard Struber to field against Birmingham…

We expect him to line up with the same formation as he has been in recent weeks, with a 4-3-1-2.

In goal will remain to be Brad Collins who had a solid game in place of the absent Sami Radlinger who has missed out with injury and will remain sidelined for tomorrow’s clash, along with midfielder Marcel Ritzmaier.

Collins had a solid game against the Owls at the weekend and couldn’t do much about the goal he conceded early on, but still did well to keep scores low in the derby.

In defence will remain Jordan Williams, Michael Sollbauer, Mads Andersen, and Clarke Oduor. The left-back has been in formidable form for the Tykes under the new manager, Struber, and has scooped up the club’s Player of the Month award in the process.

In front of the defence will be a midfield three of Alex Mowatt, with Luke Thomas and Elliott Simoes either side of him. This was the midfield that started against Wednesday and did well to craft a handful of solid chances on Saturday and haven’t done anything that would warrant them being dropped any time soon.

There would be a case to play Aapo Halme in holding midfield to help combat with the aerial duels against Lukas Jutkiewicz that will be almost inevitable, along with from set-piece situations, but it would be unlikely to see Struber adapt his starting lineup to combat the opposition.

Can you get 16 out of 16 in this Barnsley quiz?

Playing more or less in a front three will be Cauley Woodrow, Jacob Brown and Conor Chaplin, with the former supporting the latter pair in an attacking midfield role.

Woodrow was on the scoresheet to put himself clear of Conor Chaplin as the club’s outright top scorer and the output of the attacking trio has been much better as a collective for the Tykes, giving them a real chance of survival this season, despite their defensive frailties.