Bristol City 0-1 Barnsley: Carlton Morris fires Tykes to victory

Managerless Bristol City slipped to a seventh consecutive defeat in all competitions after Carlton Morris continued Barnsley's impressive run with a 1-0 Championship win at Ashton Gate.

The substitute was left with a simple tap-in from close range in the 67th minute when Alex Mowatt's left-wing corner resulted in a desperate scramble inside City's six-yard box.

The goal stretched Barnsley's unbeaten sequence in the Championship to five games, moving them four points off the top six, while hapless City slipped to 15th.

Again the home side looked bereft of ideas going forward and Barnsley were worthy of victory by a bigger margin.

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City's new caretaker-management team of assistant head coaches Paul Simpson and Keith Downing made three changes from the 2-0 midweek home defeat by Reading, which saw the end of Dean Holden's spell in charge.

They brought in Kasey Palmer, Steven Sessegnon and Antoine Semenyo, with Adam Nagy, Jamie Paterson and Nahki Wells dropping to the bench.

Barnsley boss Valerien Ismael called Daryl Dike and Michael Sollbauer into the starting line-up for Toby Sibbick and Victor Adeboyejo.

The visitors dominated the first half, looking bigger and stronger in virtually every position. They had a strong shout for a penalty waved aside when Dike went down under a challenge from Taylor Moore.

City skipper Tomas Kalas cleared a 12th-minute corner from Mowatt off the line, but referee James Linington had spotted a foul.

Two minutes later Barnsley centre-back Michal Helik fired over an open goal from six yards after a neat passing move.

City's first threatening move was self-inflicted by Barnsley after 35 minutes as Mads Andersen's misdirected header beat his own goalkeeper Brad Collins, but neither Palmer nor Semenyo could find the unguarded net from a narrow angle.

It took the hosts until the 42nd minute to get in a shot and then Famara Diedhiou's effort from 25 yards was straight at Collins.

The second half began more evenly, although Barnsley again got in the first effort at goal when Callum Brittain's run into the box ended with a shot too close to Dan Bentley.

Both teams made changes after 57 minutes, Ismael making a triple switch, sending on Adeboyejo, Morris and Jordan Williams for Cauley Woodrow, Callum Styles and Conor Chaplin.

City replaced central midfielder Henri Lansbury with the more physically imposing Tyreeq Bakinson.

It was Morris who made the quickest impact with his goal, scoring for the third consecutive game.

Mowatt shot over from distance as City struggled to create any openings.

Sibbick headed over from a Mowatt free-kick, while at the other end all Collins had to do was act as an effective sweeper to deal with a succession of hopeful long balls forward.

What the managers said...

Bristol City's caretaker Paul Simpson: "Barnsley were physically and mentally tougher. While our players worked hard, there was too little quality for us to create openings. There is no magic wand or pills we can use to change our run of results. I know the owner has made it clear there is a selection process to go through, but the sooner the club appoint Dean [Holden's] successor the better. The staff are in limbo at the moment. Keith and I will be as professional as possible. But the improvement we need has to come from inside the players.

"They know that. We have told them to ignore the league table and just concentrate on the next game, which is a very tough one at Middlesbrough on Tuesday. We will prepare as well as we can, but we had 15 players unavailable because of injury today and that obviously affects team selection. It's important we get as many of those players back as quickly as possible. But for the moment we have to go with what we have. We have told the lads to ignore the league table and just concentrate on showing they are better footballers than is currently looking the case."

Barnsley's Valerien Ismael: "We are now five points off reaching 50 and that remains the first target for us. I do not want to dream of anything more at this stage because there are a lot of games still to play. I don't look beyond the next match and that is a very tough one against Stoke City.

"Today we dominated the first half. Michal Helik should have scored and Daryl Dike was also not far away. We should have been ahead at half-time. But we kept to our game plan and the goal came."

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