Barnsley supporters will see a familiar face in the Blackburn team during tonight’s match at Oakwell – their former striker Craig Hignett, who joined Graeme Souness’s side during the close season. Barnsley supporters will see a familiar face in the Blackburn team during tonight’s match at Oakwell – their former striker Craig Hignett, who joined Graeme Souness’s side during the close season.
The 30-year-old, who moved from Oakwell to Ewood Park for £2.25m, scored his first Blackburn goal on Saturday to win the match against Stockport.”This is a fixture I’ve had my eye on since the season started,” Hignett said. “I have a lot of friends at Barnsley, and they have been sending me messages all week. I am sure I will get a mixed reception.”The former Liverpool goalkeeper Brad Friedel has joined Blackburn on a free transfer, but Souness is almost certain to start with John Filan.”Brad comes here as our number one, and the rest is up to him,” Souness said.

“The other goalkeepers here may feel hard done to because they haven’t done anything wrong, but managers are paid to make difficult decisions.”Striker Matt Jansen, who missed Blackburn’s last few games with an ankle injury, is back in the squad but, as with Friedel, he is likely to be among the substitutes.Stuart Ripley begins his one-month loan from Southampton by going straight into Barnsley’s team, joining fellow loan signing Neil Maddison in the starting line-up.Barnsley will be aiming to make up for Sunday’s 1-0 home defeat by Wimbledon. They welcome back two former players in Hignett and John Curtis. Coach Eric Winstanley said: “They were two very good players, who did well for us. John got his career back on track, and Craig can easily be a Premiership player.

But the most important thing for us is to start a winning run and make their return to Oakwell an unhappy one.”Nottingham Forest’s match with bottom-placed Huddersfield Town tonight has been postponed for safety reasons because of the threat of the River Trent bursting its banks. However, there is some good news for Forest manager David Platt, with Colin Calderwood and Stern John expected to be pushing for first-team places in the near future.Huddersfield manager Lou Macari is hoping to hold on to on-loan defender Rob Kozluk for longer. The Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock has allowed an extension, providing that no other clubs are interested in the player.. Birmingham lost an opportunity to make up ground on the two runaway Nationwide First Division leaders last night as they succumbed to an upwardly mobile Norwich side that should have had more than one goal – albeit a spectacular one – to show for their efforts. The home team required a point-blank save by their goalkeeper Andy Marshall from a Bryan Hughes shot in the first minute of injury time to ensure themselves of the points. Birmingham lost an opportunity to make up ground on the two runaway Nationwide First Division leaders last night as they succumbed to an upwardly mobile Norwich side that should have had more than one goal – albeit a spectacular one – to show for their efforts. The home team required a point-blank save by their goalkeeper Andy Marshall from a Bryan Hughes shot in the first minute of injury time to ensure themselves of the points.
For a team which began 13 places higher in the table than its opponents, and which had beaten Tottenham 3-1 away a week earlier, Birmingham made an unaccountably nervous start.The basis of their uncertainty seemed to reside in their goalkeeper Ian Bennett, whose blunder had gifted Bolton a point on Saturday.

Nothing Bennett did in the opening quarter of an hour would have helped to restore his credibility. A flailing punch into the air in the opening minute went unpunished, but he began pushing his luck nine minutes later when once again he punched at the ball rather than gathering it.Norwich were building momentum and Birmingham’s David Holdsworth was booked after 21 minutes for fouling Parker, but Norwich were not that easy to stop, and the only thing which prevented them breaking through was a lack of co-ordination between their midfield and the two men up-front, Lee Marshall and Iwan Roberts.But as half-time approached there was more meaningful action. After 41 minutes Marshall did well to block a close range drive from Dele Adebola after Martin Grainger had dispossessed Malky Mackay on the edge of the box. Within a minute, Birmingham’s left-back Michael Johnson had sent a header only inches wide.But having avoided what would have been a sucker punch, the home side delivered a stunning blow of their own to take the lead with virtually the last kick of the half. When Grainger headed the ball out of the goalmouth under pressure, it fell for Adrian Forbes, who arrowed an angled volley into the far corner of the net.Twice within the space of four minutes early in the second half, Norwich had chances. After 56 Roberts had a clear run on goal but he hesitated and shot wide.

Birmingham almost did the job for him on the hour when substitute Graham Hyde lobbed the ball towards his own goal, forcing keeper Bennett to recoup a few Brownie points with a header.The Birmingham manager Trevor Francis admitted that his team would have been fortunate to earn anything from Hughes’s last-minute effort. “It wouldn’t have been totally deserved because Norwich, I thought, were a good side.” Just how good may be demonstrated this Saturday when they travel to the team who beat Watford last night, Sheffield Wednesday.Norwich City (4-4-2): A Marshall; Sutch, Fleming, Mackay, Granville; Forbes (Coote, 78), Mulryne, Parker (Russell, 73), Llewellyn; L Marshall, Roberts. Substitutes not used: Green (gk), Dervelde, Walsh.Birmingham City (4-4-2): Bennett; Gill (Hyde, h-t), Holdsworth, Purse, M Johnson; Eaden, Hughes, Grainger, Lazaridis (A Johnson, 74); Burchill (Horsfield, h-t), Adebola. Substitutes not used: Poole (gk), Burrows, A Johnson.Referee: A Butler (Sutton-in-Ashfield).. Weakness at set-plays, not a fault normally associated with Graham Taylor’s teams, cost Watford their unbeaten record at Vicarage Road last night. This sub-standard performance might have cost them the Nationwide First Division leadership as well had Fulham’s match away to the other Sheffield club, United, not been postponed. Corners by Terry Cooke led to two of the goals before Watford were caught dozing again at a throw-in that gave Alan Quinn the opportunity to lift Wednesday out of the bottom three.