Preview: Barnsley v City

Saturday 1 August, 3.00pm

Barnsley v City

Our first pre season fixture on English soil will sadly not be seeing the debuts of Carlos Tevez or Roque Santa Cruz as they continue to be nursed back to fitness. Micah Richards has recovered from swine flu and is said to be raring to go. It remains to be seen whether Kolo Toure will be joining him at the back.

Personally I wouldn’t be surprised to see our latest capture from Arsenal make an appearance as he was fit enough to player for the Gunners at the start of the week. Like the rest of us, Hughes is looking for an improvement on the South African games as the players improve their fitness:

“We hope to raise the intensity a little at Barnsley but we still have different players at different fitness levels so we have to be mindful of that.

“What we have now are three good games in a week – Rangers and Celtic follow Barnsley- and what we intend to do is spread the workload so that everyone will get up to speed.

There’s little point in speculating on the line-up for this fixture as the players will clearly be rotated to give everyone a run out. However I will be hoping to get a first live glimpse of Adebayor and Barry wearing City shirts. We know results aren’t important in these fixtures but it would still be reassuring to see a victory with a few goals, particularly after the Vodacom Challenge.

There will be cash turnstiles at Oakwell for anyone without a ticket.

Official Barnsley site: http://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/

Barnsley Football Club
Oakwell Stadium
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S71 1ET
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