Robins braced for race to the wire

Town are locked on 47 points alongside the Reds and Sheffield Wednesday in a scrap to beat the drop that is as absorbing and unpredictable as anything English football has to offer.

Six points separate Birmingham City in 11th place and Peterborough United in 23rd following an Easter weekend that resulted in more clubs looking nervously over their shoulders.

Such is the standard that teams fighting relegation to League One are setting, that a ratio of one win and one defeat over the Easter weekend – which Barnsley achieved – is not proving enough.

Indeed, Wednesday garnered four points over the holiday weekend from a victory over the Reds and a draw with Bristol City, but saw a one-point gap to the drop zone cut to just goal difference.

Huddersfield’s victory over Leeds United in the lunchtime kick-off on March 16 saw them go eight points clear. By 5pm that day the gap was five points and they began Tuesday’s trip to Bolton in the bottom three, where they stayed after a 1-0 defeat.

The focus now turns to the run-in, with Huddersfield having one fewer game in which to avoid the drop than their two rivals from down the A629.

That game in hand for both Wednesday and Barnsley comes next Tuesday night when the Owls visit Millwall and the Reds face the daunting trip to title-chasing Cardiff.

What is clear from the finales of the White Rose trio is that with so many games to play against the teams around them, each has their destiny in their own hands.

David Flitcroft’s Barnsley have on paper the tougher denouement with four promotion-chasing teams on the horizon, starting on Saturday at Crystal Palace.

Dave Jones’s Owls face a third relegation six-pointer in a week when they host Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. Rovers have been sucked into the dogfight after failing to win in eight games.

But the team with their fate firmly in their own hands is arguably Huddersfield, who now play only teams in the bottom half of the table, a sequence that begins against second-bottom Peterborough on Saturday and culminates with that nerve-jangling home date with Barnsley on May 4.

“I think it’s always been the case that it will go down to the last game,” said Town boss Robins, who successfully steered Barnsley away from the relegation dogfight two years ago.

“Everybody is picking points up, everybody below us. If you look back two weeks ago, we beat Leeds 2-1 in the early game and were eight points above the relegation zone for a few hours.

“Everybody won and brought us back to five. We then play one game against Hull and find ourselves in the bottom three.

“Then against Bolton there’s a little more spice to it, maybe a little more pressure on us. A point would have taken us to 19th.”

The form of the clubs in the bottom half has been so strong that traditional belief in 50 points being the safety line are set to be blown out of the water.

Indeed, in the 32 years since the Football League changed the system from two points for a win to three, the highest tally accumulated by a relegated club has been 52 points, and only Leicester City in 2008 and Millwall in 1996 have amassed that total and been demoted.

Barnsley survived last season – albeit because Portsmouth were deducted 10 points – with 48 points.

This season that total would only be good enough for second bottom, with the magical safety number likely to be 53 points at the very least.

Robins, who succeeded Simon Grayson in February and has won three of his nine League games in charge at the John Smith’s Stadium, said: “It’s just this division, it’s been absolutely incredible this season.

“Had we won against Bolton we would have been four points behind them and they’ll be breathing a sigh of a relief.

“They’re going for the play-offs and we’d have only been four points behind them.”

But Robins saw enough in a lively performance against Bolton to suggest his side can play their way out of trouble.

“That was a marker and we’ve got to play like that for the rest of the season,” he said.

“In all fairness the Bolton game was never going to be a season-defining game.

“We’ve given a good account of ourselves and I thought we controlled it for the most part, we created enough chances but we just didn’t have the killer touch.

“We started off a little bit lower in intensity, and that might have something to do with the confidence, but when that grew we started moving the ball around a little bit better and we created a number of chances and the crowd started to pick up on that. They sparked off each other well.

“And on Saturday we limited a really good Hull side to few chances, so we have to take heart and keep playing and keep plugging away and things will turn.

“That’s got to be the case for the remainder of the season, because six games against teams that are around us now in the division certainly gives us a chance to move out of the area we’re in.

“We just need that little bit of quality in front of goal.”

Championship relegation run-in for Yorkshire trio

BARNSLEY

Pos 20th P39 GD -10 Pts 47

Sat Apr 6 - Crystal Palace (a)

Tues Apr 9 - Cardiff City (a)

Sat Apr 13 - CHARLTON (H)

Tues Apr 16 - DERBY (H)

Sat Apr 20 - Nottm Forest (a)

Sat Apr 27 - HULL CITY (H)

Sat May 4 - Huddersfield (a)

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY

Pos 21st P39 GD -10 Pts 47

Sat Apr 6 - BLACKBURN (H)

Tues Apr 9 - Millwall (a)

Sat Apr 13 - Leeds United (a)

Tues Apr 16 - Blackpool (a)

Sat Apr 20 - IPSWICH (H)

Sat Apr 27 - Peterborough (a)

Sat May 4 - MIDDLESBROUGH (H)

HUDDERSFIELD TOWN

Pos 22nd P40 GD -26 Pts 47

Sat Apr 6 - PETERBOROUGH (H)

Sat Apr 13 - Wolves (a)

Tues Apr 16 - Blackburn (a)

Sat Apr 20 - MILLWALL (H)

Sat Apr 27 - Bristol City (a)

Sat May 4 - BARNSLEY (H)

GD denotes goal difference.