Barnsley are enjoying an excellent campaign in the Championship and the Tykes have given themselves a real chance of making it into the play-off places come the end of the campaign.

Valérien Ismaël has managed to perform wonders so far since taking over at Oakwell and he has managed to find a system that gets the very best out of all of the talented players he has within his squad. That has seen them become one of the most inform sides in the entire division since the turn of the year and has seen opposing managers scratching their heads over what to do to stop them.

The Tykes will feel they now have a very realistic shot at earning promotion to the Premier League, which would be a remarkable achievement for a club that only just survived last season on the final day with a win at Brentford. Barnsley do no have the largest of transfer budgets, but what they do have is a clear vision and plan for how they want the club to progress forwards with young talent.

You have to feel that Ismaël is swiftly placing himself amongst the higher echelons of the best performing managers in the club’s history. That might well be sealed if he does go on to get the club promoted.

With that in mind, here, we have broken down the top 10 best ever performing Barnsley bosses in terms of points accumulated per game. Click ‘next’ to start the list.

Kicking off this list of the best ever performing Barnsley managers in terms of points per game is Paul Hart, who managed to accumulate 1.21 points per game during his time in charge at Oakwell.

Hart was appointed as Barnsley manager back in March 2004 taking over from Guðjón Þórðarson after he left the club following Peter Risdale’s takeover. That came less than a month on from his sacking at Nottingham Forest following a run of 14 games without a win that saw their bright start to the 2003/04 season fall apart.

The 67-year-old’s time in charge at Oakwell did not get off to the smoothest of starts with him having to wait until his sixth league game in charge to secure his first win against Plymouth Argyle. He eventually saw the Tykes finish in 12th place in the Second Division or League One.

The following season saw the Tykes fail to mount enough of a consistent challenge for promotion and eventually the decision was made to part company with Hart exactly a year on from when he took over. The Tykes eventually finished the 2004/05 season in 13th place ten points shy of the play-offs.

Coming in at ninth place on this list is Mark Robins, who managed to last a while longer than Hart did at Oakwell. The current Coventry City manager accumulated 1.22 points per game during his time in charge of the club.

Robins was appointed as Barnsley manager back in September 2009, following the departure of Simon Davey. The 51-year-old arrived with his stock high following a successful two-years in charge of Rotherham United in his first managerial role where he nearly guided the Millers to promotion from League Two and in the 2008/09 season guided them to 14th despite a 17 points deduction.

The former Manchester United forward inherited a difficult task to keep the club in the Championship and they were bottom of the table following his first game in charge which was a 1-0 defeat away at Watford. However, an eight-game unbeaten run around the festive period saw him drag his side away from relegation danger. The Tykes ended up finishing in 18th place that term.

His first and only full season in charge of the club saw Robins guide the club to a 17th place finish after winning 14 of their 46 matches. However, at the end of the campaign, a disagreement with the board saw him leave and end his spell in charge.

At number eight on the list is the second most recent manager Barnsley have had, with Struber having managed to accumulate 1.28 points per game during his time in charge at Oakwell.

Struber took over from Daniel Stendel in November 2019 with the Tykes looking in real danger of making an immediate return to League One following their promotion the season before. However, the Austrian managed to galavnise his players and despite the club sitting seven points adrift of safety when he took over he gave them belief they could survive the drop.

The Austrian secured a precious 3-1 win against Hull City in his first game in charge to end an 18-game winless run for the Tykes. Barnsley would ultimately win three of his first six league games to put themselves back in with a chance of survival. In the end, the relegation battle went to the final day of the campaign where a dramatic late winner at Brentford kept the club in the Championship.

Barnsley were hoping they could build on that under Struber this season, but matters were not helped with constant speculation over his future. Eventually, after a winless start to the campaign, he left the club to take over at New York Red Bulls in the MLS.

In at number seven on this list is David Flitcroft who spent time with Barnsley working as part of the coaching staff before taking over as manager and accumulating 1.30 points per game during his time at Oakwell.

Flitcroft arrived at Barnsley in June 2011 to work as the club’s assistant manager to Keith Hill who had been appointed after a successful spell in charge of Rochdale. However, he took over as caretaker manager following the departure of Hill in December 2012, after a 3-1 defeat against Blackburn Rovers left them bottom of the table after 25 matches of the Championship season.

After two wins in three games in caretaker charge he was offered the job on a permanent basis in January 2013. Flitcroft managed to keep the club in the Championship by the end of the 2012/13 campaign with a final day 2-2 draw at Huddersfield Town enough for both sides to stay up on the day in what was a dramatic match.

However, the following season Barnsley got off to a poor start and managed to win just two of their opening 17 Championship matches. That meant that following a 3-0 defeat at home against Birmingham City in November 2013, Flitcroft was dismissed with the club bottom of the league.

Coming in at number six on this list is Paul Heckingbottom who has spent time as a player, coach and manager at Oakwell. During his time in charge as manager he managed to accumulate 1.32 points per game.

Heckingbottom had a spell in caretaker charge of the Tykes briefly after Danny Wilson was sacked by the club in 2015. He would then do so again for a longer spell when Lee Johnson left to take over at Bristol City in 2016. As far as caretaker spells go it was as successful as anyone could have hoped with him guiding the club to the EFL Trophy and also promotion back to the Championship.

Unsurprisingly these achievements saw him rewarded with the job on a permanent basis. During the 2016/17 season, he guided the Tykes on a couple of very good runs of form before they eventually ended that term in 14th place with 15 wins from their 46 games. The following season saw him sign a new deal with the club in February 2018.

However, just a few days after signing that new deal he surprisingly departed the club and moved Leeds United. His time at Elland Road was brief and after another short spell in Scotland with Hibernian, Heckingbottom is now part of the coaching staff at Sheffield United.

In fifth place on this list is Guðjón Þórðarson, who managed to accumulate 1.41 points per game in his spell in charge of the club which lasted less than a year.

Þórðarson arrived at Oakwell in June 2003 taking over for the start of the 2003/04 campaign and he got off to a strong start with the Tykes only losing three of their opening 16 League One matches. However, their form did drop off after that start and they eventually started to fall away from the play-off places in the New Year.

Following Risdale’s takeover of the club the decision was made to part ways with Þórðarson following a run of just one win in ten league matches. That had seen them look unlikely to be able to mount a promotion challenge that term which was the aim of the new regime.

Another manager who also managed to accumulate 1.41 points per game during their time in charge of the Tykes was Andrew Ritchie.

Ritchie, like Flitcroft before him on this list, initially arrive at Oakwell to work with a current manager at the club this time under Paul Hart. However, following Hart’s departure from the club in March 2005 he was appointed as their caretaker manager and he enjoyed a successful spell in that role guiding them a 13th place finish in League One.

That saw him be offered the job on a permanent basis in May 2005, and he managed to enjoy an excellent first full season in charge of the club guiding them to a fifth-place finish in League One having won 18 of their 46 league matches in the 2005/06 campaign. Ritchie would then help Barnsley win the play-offs with a dramatic penalty shootout win against Swansea in the final.

The following season saw Ritchie be approached by Sheffield Wednesday in October 2006 after they had sacked Paul Sturrock. However, after remaining with the Tykes he was then sacked in November following a 2-0 defeat against Crystal Palace that left them in the relegation zone.

Third on the list of Barnsley’s best ever performing managers in terms of points per game is Lee Johnson, who managed to accumulate 1.55 points per game during his time in charge at Oakwell.

Johnson arrived at the club in February 2015 after the club were looking to appoint a successor to Danny Wilson. They agreed a compensation package with Oldham Athletic for his services and that saw him head to Oakwell. During the final half of the 2015/16 season, he took the club from 16th place when he took over to an 11th placed finish in League One.

The 2016/17 campaign would see Barnsley enjoy periods of good form and also a period of eight successive defeats. However, to his credit, Johnson managed to turn things around and guided the club to a run of seven consecutive wins. That saw him linked with a number of other jobs and after guiding the club to the final of the EFL Trophy he would depart shortly after.

Bristol City move to take Johnson from Barnsley in February 2016, which left the Tykes relying on Paul Heckingbottom to see out the job of winning both the EFL Trophy and promotion to the Championship.

Second on the list of Barnsley’s best ever performing permanent managers in terms of points per game is Daniel Stendel, with the German having managed to pick up 1.70 points per game at Oakwell.

Stendel was an unknown quantity when he took over the club in the summer of 2018 following their relegation back down to the English third tier. He managed to get off to an excellent start to if in charge at the club and managed to guide them to just one defeat in their opening 12 League One matches as they immediately established themselves as promotion contenders.

Things would get even better than that midway through the campaign when the Tykes went on a remarkable 20-game unbeaten run in the league to put themselves in an excellent place to go on and earn automatic promotion to the Championship. Four wins in their last five was enough for them to seal a return to the Championship with 91 points taken in 46 games.

However, things did not start well for Barnsley in the Championship last season and after a run of ten matches without a win the decision was made, amid disappointment from fans, to part company with the German.

Leading the way in this list and highlighting just what a magnificent job he is doing with the Tykes at this moment in time is current boss Valérien Ismaël, who has accumulated a stunning 1.94 points per game since taking over.

Ismaël was a brave choice by the Barnsley board to succeed Struber after he left the Tykes at the start of the campaign, with not having any experience of English football. The former Bayern Munich defender though has proven to be an excellent choice and it is hard to imagine how anyone else could have done even half as well as he has.

The Tykes have been led on a lengthy unbeaten run that has seen them establish themselves as genuine promotion contenders this season. There is every chance that they could go on to secure a play-off place. That would see them have a real shot at earning a remarkable promotion to the Premier League. Should that happen then Ismaël would arguably be their greatest ever manager.