Barnsley have endured a challenging start to the Championship season, with the Tykes currently sitting inside 22nd place in the table having collected just five points from their opening nine matches of the campaign, leaving them three points adrift of safety.

Daniel Stendel's side were one of the pre-season favourites to suffer relegation back to League 1 from the Championship this term, but anyone who closely followed their displays in the English third tier last term would perhaps have slightly higher expectations of the Tykes this season, with the Yorkshire club finding a perfect blend between youthfulness and quality in possession and a resilience in defence.

Barnsley started the season in very promising fashion, perhaps still under the wave of optimism that saw them promoted in second place in League 1 having earned an impressive tally of 91 points, and Fulham, who had just suffered relegation from the Premier League, were convincingly swept aside with a deserved 1-0 win for the Tykes at Oakwell.

That would have brought fresh belief and optimism for Barnsley's supporters ahead of the rest of the campaign, in which Stendel's side's main ambition will be to consolidate themselves back in the Championship, but the Tykes are winless in their eight Championship matches since the opening day of the season and have only managed to pick up two more points.

One of Barnsley's major issues so far this term has been their inability to both create and take opportunities at times, with Stendel's side only registering five league goals in nine games, which the fewest amount scored so far this term, and in Sunday's 3-1 home defeat against Brentford they failed to make the most of few chances when they had got into some promising positions in between the lines of the visitors' defence.

Another huge concern for the Tykes will be their emerging defensive issues, with Stendel's side starting to concede goals at an alarming rate having shipped six goals in their last three games and fifteen in total in their opening nine matches, at an average of 1.66 goals per game.

That is in stark contrast to last season, which saw Barnsley concede just 39 goals in 46 League 1 matches at an average of just 0.8 per game, and was a huge reason the Tykes were able to mount their successful push for automatic promotion to the Championship.

It is therefore easy to point out Barnsley's struggles in adapting their style of play to the Championship so far this term, with Stendel's side finding that teams are more likely to punish both individual and collective errors, and on Sunday the Tykes deployed a high line so they could press Brentford high up the pitch in an attempt to stop them finding their passing rhythm, but that left them far too exposed to the Bees' pace upfront.

Stendel needs to start showing signs that he can slightly adapt and tweak his tactics to allow Barnsley to find some form starting with Wednesday's clash against Derby County at Oakwell, and perhaps the Tykes should look to sit a little deeper and look to soak up pressure which could both prevent the opposition finding as much space in behind their defence and allow them to break with some of the pace and quality they possess.

Barnsley are a side largely inexperienced at Championship level, but they need to start showing an ability to adapt if they are going to be able to manage to pick up enough positive results if they are going to able to avoid relegation back to League 1 this term.