Barnsley's perfect start to 2025 continued with one of those rare occurrences - a comfortable home win, Barnsley's biggest for a massive 15 months since defeating Shrewsbury 3-0 in October 2023.
It also saw the Reds attain back to back home league wins for the first time in 11months, last doing so in February 2024 when defeating Bristol Rovers and Carlisle 2-1.
They have won as many home games in the last two outings as they had in the previous 17.
This was Barnsley's fourth successive league win overall - their best run since another run of four nearly two years in March 2023.
They have won their opening two league games of a calendar year for the first time in nine years when they won their first six in 2016.
Jon Russell got the ball rolling, he has now scored in eight different games for the club and they have won all eight.
Max Watters gave the Reds a cushion, he has now scored in 12 different games for Barnsley and whilst they have not won them all they do remain unbeaten (W8 D4)
And to complete the hat-trick, the Reds have also never lost when top scorer Davis Keillor-Dunn has found the back of the net (W8 D2) this was his ninth league goal of the season, only seven players have netted more in League One so far in 2024-2025.
More significantly Keillor-Dunn has become the first Barnsley player to net in four successive games since Devante Cole also did it at this time of year last season, netting on the 29th December, 1st January, 13th January and 16th January compared with Keillor-Dunn scoring on 26th December, 29th December, 1st January and 4th January.
This gave Barnsley only their second home league clean sheet in 2024-2025, the first time they have had to wait until a season ticks over into a new calendar year to register two home shutouts since 2019-2020 when they had to wait until the 22nd February 2020 to get their second (after gaining their first on the opening day of the season)
Indeed it is only Barnsley's third clean sheet in their last 27 home league games stretching back to December 2023.
This was Barnsley's first league double of the season following another 3-0 victory in the reverse fixture back in August.
Corey O'Keeffe set up the opener from Russell, he has now assisted three goals in the past four games to give him eight for the season, three more than the next most for the Reds which is Adam Phillips who also grabbed his fifth assist in this game.
Barnsley have opened the scoring in the 11th minute for the second successive game.
Captain Luca Connell made his 88th league appearance for Barnsley in this match but only the fourth from the bench.
Sam Cosgrove picked up Barnsley’s 11th second half injury time yellow card this season (from 68 in total) – 16%
They have received an injury time yellow in four of their last six matches.
This is however the first time this season Barnsley have picked up a yellow card in both first half and second half injury time.
These two sides have only met four times, Barnsley lost the first two with an aggregate score of 6-1 but have won the next two by an aggregate score of 6-0.
There were a total of 30 shots in the match, the most for eight Barnsley league matches.
13 of them were on target the most for 16 Barnsley matches in all competitions.
There has been a total of 18 fouls in each of Barnsley’s last two matches and in four of the last seven.
Barnsley Team:
23. Ben Killip
6. Mael de Gevigney
5. Donovan Pines
32. Josh Earl
7. Corey O’Keeffe
8. Adam Phillips
50. Kelechi Nwakali
3. Jon Russell
17. Georgie Gent
36. Max Watters
40. Davis Keillor-Dunn
Substitutes:
21. Conor McCarthy (for Earl 59)
48. Luca Connell (for Russell 68)
4. Marc Roberts (for Pines 68)
44. Stephen Humphrys (for Keillor-Dunn 81)
9. Sam Cosgrove (for Watters 81)
Unused Substitutes:
12. Jackson Smith, 15. Kyran Lofthouse.
Crawley Team:
1. Jojo Wollacott
24. Toby Mullarkey
3. Dion Conroy
5. Charlie Barker
18. Junior Quitirna
45. Tyreece John-Jules
6. Max Anderson
19. Jeremy Kelly
12. Panutche Camara
29. Tola Showunmi
9. Will Swann
Substitutions:
30. Ben Radcliffe (for Anderson 61)
14. Rushian Hepburn-Murphy (for John-Jules 60)
23. Bradley Ibrahim (for Swann 61)
25. Antony Papadopoulos (for Kelly 78)
Unused Substitutes:
16. Eddie Beach, 20. Joy Mukena, 11. Jack Roles.
Sky Bet League One Results:
Saturday 4th January 2025:
Burton Albion (24th) 0-1 Northampton Town (18th)
Hoskins 86
Cambridge United (23rd) 0-1 Bristol Rovers (20th)
Thomas 26
BARNSLEY (5th) 3-0 Crawley Town (21st)
Russell 11
Watters 51
Keillor-Dunn 54
Charlton Athletic (11th) 0-0 Reading (6th)
Exeter City (14th) 1-2 Bolton Wanderers (10th)
Mitchell 54
Collins 88
Morley 90+1
Huddersfield Town (4th) 0-0 Rotherham United (16th)
Leyton Orient (8th) 1-0 Shrewsbury Town (22nd)
Donley 63
Lincoln City (12th) 0-0 Stevenage (13th)
Stockport County (7th) 1-2 Mansfield Town (9th)
Gregory 12
Collar 20
Evans 39
Wigan Athletic (17th) 0-3 Birmingham City (1st)
May 18
May 30
Willumsson 61
Wrexham (3rd) 1-0 Peterborough United (19th)
Fletcher 87
Wycombe Wanderers (2nd) 1-1 Blackpool (15th)
Kone pen 40
Joseph 90+3
Barnsley lie in 5th place in Sky Bet League One with 42 points from 25 games. We are 4 points inside the Play-Offs, 9 points off the Automatic Promotion Places, 11 points off First Place and 22 points above the Relegation Zone.
Up to 6/11/25
Next Up:
On The Road:
Sky Bet League One Matchday Twenty Six: Northampton Town v Barnsley, Saturday 11th January 2025. Kick Off: 3pm
At Oakwell:
Sky Bet League One Matchday Twenty Eight: Barnsley v Stevenage, Wednesday 25th January 2025. Kick Off: 3pm