Tammy time

We were grateful to Tammy Abraham for his impact at both ends of the pitch at Oakwell.

He scored the only goal with our solitary shot on target, and as well as that contribution in attack, he was involved in six aerial duels defensively and recorded four clearances, among them a superb header off the line.

His three successful dribbles were bettered only by Callum Hudson-Odoi, who made five.

Abraham continues his excellent ratio this season for goals and assists per 90, which is currently 1.125. He averages a goal contribution every 80 minutes as the table above shows.

Scoring when on top

It was a tough encounter in South Yorkshire with the Blues rarely in control. However, for a period after half-time, following a switch to four at the back, we did assert our dominance until Abraham broke the deadline.

In that 20-minute period we had a 76 per cent share of possession and recorded an 89 per cent pass completion rate. Both those figures were well up on our game average (72 per and 84 per cent respectively).

We had three attempts on goal in that period, as did the Tykes, but Abraham’s was the only one on target.

Battling Barnsley

We faced 14 shots at Oakwell, the highest figure since Man City’s 18 at the start of last month. Six of their attempts stemmed from set-pieces.

Barnsley won twice as many tackles as us (34 to 17) with both teams winning two-thirds of the challenges they attempted (68 per cent success rate).

Michal Helik, the Barnsley central defender, won nine, and he also made a game-high five interceptions.

Our top tackler was N’Golo Kante with four. Andreas Christensen and Reece James won three each.

We were dispossessed 25 times and our struggles were further highlighted by the fact we were forced to make 33 clearances, in contrast to our hosts’ four.

Kurt Zouma led the way for us defensively with seven successful clearances and six aerial duels won.

Overall, we came out on top of 45 per cent (19) of the 42 aerial duels contested, and successfully negotiated seven Barnsley corners.