Hull City 0-1 Barnsley: Cauley Woodrow strike takes Tykes off bottom of table
- Published
Cauley Woodrow's father, Martin Patching, played for Wolves and Watford
Cauley Woodrow's 15th goal of the season earned Barnsley victory over Hull City and moved them off the bottom of the Championship table.
Woodrow's strike three minutes before half-time secured his side a third consecutive win and put the Tykes within three points of safety, having been nine points adrift only 15 days ago.
Despite the narrow margin, victory on Humberside was deserved with Hull defender Matthew Pennington making three goal-line clearances.
Defeat extended Hull's winless run to nine matches, including seven defeats, and they sit only four points above the drop zone.
They could easily have been beaten more comfortably were it not for Pennington's late interventions and goalkeeper George Long, who denied Jacob Brown one-on-one just after Barnsley had taken the lead.
But Long was at fault for the goal as he could only push a firm low cross from the left back into play and Woodrow poked in what proved to be the winner.
Michael Sollbauer came closest to making the points safe with a right-foot shot and the goalkeeper stranded, only for Pennington to make the best of his clearances, sweeping the ball to safety.
Hull tried to rally as the clock ticked down but only fashioned one moment for Jackson Irvine with 12 minutes remaining as Brad Collins made a strong save from close range.
Hull City boss Grant McCann told BBC Humberside:
"The big thing for us is we've got to stay positive. We know we're in a fight now, we're in a scrap and we need to make sure we roll our sleeves up and meet this challenge head on.
"There's no getting away from it, we've been disappointing over these last nine games and we're not making excuses - it's not about Jarrod (Bowen) or Kamil (Grosicki) or the injuries.
"We just haven't been good enough. Tonight we didn't threaten at all - we had a couple of half-chances in the second half.
"There's been so much negativity surrounding us for the last two to three months, the players need to block themselves from that and focus on the next game. That's our only target."
Barnsley manager Gerhard Struber told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"I'm very happy, very proud of the team and in the past few weeks we have done the right things and had the right game plan.
"It's very important at the moment we pick up the points, the Championship is so tough and many teams are with us in the relegation fight.
"We knew what Hull do and we had very good conviction in our style and this was the key to mix between game style and discipline and we reproduced the last few weeks."