Wycombe manager Matt Bloomfield acknowledged that keeping the team in League One is his top priority despite the excitement of leading his team to a Wembley cup final. For this reason, the team’s victory over Cheltenham Town in midweek may prove to be one of the season’s most significant outcomes.
The club’s spirits were raised when they made it to the Bristol Street Motors Trophy final, but the defeat at Stevenage soon brought home the fact that they are still dangerously close to the relegation zone.
Referee Darren Drysdale, who also turned down Wanderers’ two penalty claims, sent custodian Max Stryjek off, leaving Wycombe supporters furious.
Following “serious foul play,” Stryjek received a ridiculously harsh three-match suspension.
When the Chairboys host Barnsley at Adams Park on Saturday, March 2, they will play a team that is also vying for promotion.
When the teams played in November of last year in Yorkshire, Barnsley prevailed 1-0 because of a contentious goal that was scored in stoppage time, putting Drysdale and Stryjek back in the public eye.
The Wycombe ‘keeper was attempting to pass the time with the score at 0-0 when Barnsley striker Sam Cosgrove pushed him over and dropped the ball, which Cosgrove then tapped into an empty net.
Stryek made a careless play, but Drysdale let the “goal” to stand because most people thought there would be a free kick given for a foul.
Later, Wanderers disclosed that PGMOL, the organisation in charge of referees, informed the club that it ought to have been forbidden.
It was Barnsley’s fifth victory in the previous six meetings between the two teams, with the Chairboys’ 3-0 triumph away in August 2022 serving as the sole exception.
Dom Gape and Nick Freeman, who are both currently with other clubs, scored two outstanding long-range goals that made the game memorable.
Barnsley has only lost once in five trips to Adams Park, that being a 1-0 victory for Wanderers in December 2018. Barnsley has won six of the previous eleven meetings.
