After making his home debut in the 2-0 win over Brentford at the weekend, Barnsley goalkeeper Jack Walton is confident that the side can secure their Championship status at Derby County on Sunday.
The Reds know that victory will be enough to ensure they remain out of the bottom three when the final whistle goes at Pride Park, and the young stopper is relishing the prospect of another huge game.
“Saturday was about getting three points and we’ve done that,” said Walton. “Now we’ve got one massive game - one cup final - and we have to win it. If we win it we stay up.
“We’ve never doubted ourselves. It’s in our own hands and we go to Derby on Sunday, confident that we’re going to do the job.”
Walton was called into action on several occasions last Tuesday as Barnsley lost 3-0 at Nottingham Forest, but he enjoyed a surprisingly quieter game against Brentford at Oakwell on Saturday.
Victory and results elsewhere meant that the Reds climbed out of the relegation zone at the expense of Bolton Wanderers, who lost at fellow strugglers Burton Albion.
But Walton insists that the team were not worried about what was happening outside Barnsley, with their sole focus on claiming all three points against the Bees.
“It’s a great result and a massive result for the team, for the fans and for the Club,” continued the 19-year-old.
“Obviously the results have gone our way and we’re now out of the bottom three, which is where we want to be on Sunday.
“We had to focus on ourselves first; we had to win. There’s no point in the results going your way and not doing the job yourselves, so we focussed on ourselves and got the three points.
“We had two massive games - we’ve won one of them, we’ve now got to win the other one.”
It has been a whirlwind few days for the Academy product, who has performed with maturity in his short Barnsley career.
The young goalkeeper had a loan spell at Stalybridge Celtic earlier this season and has not been fazed by his recent first team responsibilities.
“It’s been a good week for myself; I made my debut on Tuesday and kept a clean sheet on Saturday,” said Walton.
“But it’s not about me; it’s about the team, it’s about the fans and they were excellent. They got behind us, they were so loud and it helped us - they were the twelfth man.
“The lads were excellent, defended for their lives and probably could have gone on and won it with a few more goals.”
You can watch Jack’s press conference on our iFollow channel.
