Relief for Hourihane as Trotters trounced…

By Alan Frift

BARNSLEY 4

Russell 15, 86, Jalo 25, 71

BARNSLEY: Flavell 6, Bland 6, Roberts 7, McCarthy 7, Earl 8 (Lembikisa 87, 6), Phillips 7, Connell 6, Russell 8, Jalo 8 (Cotter 90, 6), Keillor-Dunn 8, Humphrys 6 (O’Keeffe 67, 6). Subs not used: Hayton, Lewis, Rodrigues, Nwakali.

BOLTON W 1

Collins 74

BOLTON: Baxter 6, Forino-Joseph 6, Santos 6 (Lolos 66, 6), Johnston 6 (Murphy 38, 6), Dacres-Cogley 6 (Jones 38, 6), Sheehan 6 (Dempsey 45, 6), Thomason 6, Osei-Tutu 6, Morley 6 (Matete 40, 7), McAtee 6, Collins 6. Subs not used: Southwood, Mendes, Gomes.

Att: 13,685 Rating: ★★★★★ Ref: Elliot Bell 7/10

CONOR Hourihane was “relieved” to earn his first victory as Barnsley interim head coach after this convincing win against play-off hopefuls Bolton.

Fabio Jalo and Jon Russell scored two goals each, while Aaron Collins’ second-half goal was merely a consolation for Bolton, who dropped to eighth.

Barnsley climbed to 11th in the table, and Hourihane said: “Full credit to the players, I thought they were outstanding. I could feel it coming because I had seen it in training over the past few days. I thought their energy was really good.

“I am really proud of them for sticking to their work. We haven’t come away from what we want to do.

“To do it at home against a good team was special. It all just came together today, which was nice.”

Barnsley started with purpose and opened the scoring in the 15th minute when Russell manoeuvred past his defender and curled a low shot past Nathan Baxter from the centre of the box. The Reds doubled their lead ten minutes later with a well-worked set-piece routine. Davis Keillor-Dunn lofted the ball into the area, where Josh Earl had pulled to the back post to lay it off for Jalo to finish from close range.

Bolton started lively after the break. However, it was Barnsley who extended their lead when Jalo cut inside and rifled his second of the game into the roof of the net after 71 minutes.

Collins responded for the visitors by rounding the goalkeeper after being set free by Jay Matete’s pass three minutes later, but Russell ended all doubt when he rose to head home Barnsley’s fourth from a cross by Phillips.

Hourihane added: “We forced them into three changes after half an hour, and that shows how good we were. I want to bring that excitement back to playing at home. Dribbling with fast wingers is what I was used to when I was a player.”

Bolton head coach Steven Schumacher was disappointed after losing further ground.

He said: “We weren’t good enough. I’ve always been honest since I’ve been here, the games we’ve lost previously, we haven’t deserved to and haven’t taken our chances, but today we were miles off it.

“I was forced into making three changes after 35 minutes, which is very rare because of how bad the performance was.”