Adam Davies has stressed the importance of taking maximum points from the two fixtures over the Bank Holiday weekend.
Barnsley are currently second in Sky Bet League One as the race for promotion reaches boiling point, with Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton Athletic chasing an automatic spot.
The Reds welcome Shrewsbury Town to Oakwell on Friday before making the long journey to Plymouth Argyle on Monday, and six points over the Easter period would be crucial as Davies and co. look to make an immediate return to the second tier.
“It’s obviously a massive weekend for us; the results kind of went our way last week so we’ve given ourselves a good chance again,” said Davies. “It’s still out of our hands, so we just need to concentrate on the performance, do what we’ve been doing over the course of the season and hopefully the results will come.”
Saturday’s victory over Fleetwood Town was the perfect reaction for Barnsley after losing at Burton Albion a week previously.
That ended the Reds’ unbeaten run that stretched back to December, but Davis insists the response from his teammates in the wake of that setback has been exemplary.
“The defeat to Burton was a bit of a kick up the backside – we had a sit down as players, together, and spoke about it and we just spoke about getting back to what we do well with the high press and being the energetic team that we are,” continued the skipper.
“We’ve been concentrating on getting back to that and I think it showed on Saturday; we were really good, took the game to Fleetwood and dominated most of the game.”
Sam Ricketts’ side head to South Yorkshire on the back of a hard-fought 2-0 victory at Gillingham, which somewhat alleviated their relegation worries for the time being.
Shrewsbury are six points clear of the drop zone but with so many teams currently embroiled in a battle for survival, any potential slip could see the Shrews dragged closer to the bottom four.
“They’re fighting for their lives to stay in the league, so we know what to expect,” insisted Davies. “We played at their place earlier in the season and got beat so we owe them one and we want to go out there and perform to the best of our ability. I’m sure if we do that, we’ll have a really good chance of winning the game.
“They’re a decent team; anyone can beat anyone in this league, so we’re fully focussed on what we can do. We’re aware of what they’re about and we’ll have a game plan and try to execute it as best we can.”
You can watch Adam’s full press conference on iFollow Barnsley.
