Barnsley head coach Conor Hourihane says 33 points from the first half of the season is a ‘decent points return’ but wants to better it in the second half of the campaign.

The Reds are currently 15th in League One, three points clear of the bottom three and nine adrift of the play-off places, with at least two games in hand on every club and up to five on some.

Based on points-per-game, they are on course for a tally of 66 points which would put have put them tenth in League One in each of the last three seasons. It is two fewer than they had at this stage last season.

Hourihane told the Chronicle: “Obviously we’ve got a lot of games in hand on others and we should probably be in around 26, 27 games or 25. “I think it's a decent points return. “I think like any team, you look back at certain games and think ‘we've left some points behind us’, but then we got late goals against Blackpool, we got late goals against Burton Albion early on in the season as well to pick up points when it looked like we were only going to get one. “I think we're a couple of points short but, if we were to match that in the second half of the season, it will put us in the top ten, which would be better than last year. “We want to go even better than that. “I’m an ambitious head coach and I want to get more than 33 points in the second half of the season.”

Davis Keillor-Dunn is Barnsley’s top-scorer with 14 goals this season but, having not started the last two games following illness, veteran striker David McGoldrick has netted three times.

Hourihane was asked if he would start both strikers. He said: “Probably from the start of the games, it will probably one or the other for now, if I'm honest. “I think there'll be a lot of sharing minutes seeing that Didzy’s hit a bit of form in the last couple of games. “There'll be a decent workload shared between the two of them moving forward over the next few games and it's up to the both of them then to put in good performances whether you start or come on for 25 minutes. “It's a good headache to have all of a sudden because we were really reliant on Davo over the last six weeks or so, but now obviously when another player comes into form, and he's knocking on the door to get more starts, then it helps with team selection and workload.”

Defender Jack Shepherd came off on Saturday with a knock to his knee.

Hourihane said: “It’s not as bad as bad first feared. If someone comes off with their knee injury you fear if it’s bad.

“But it was just a heavy knock and he was in discomfort. We’ve assessed him and we will assess him further.

“It’s definitely not long-term. We will see if he’s back for the game (at Cardiff on Tuesday).”

Captain Luca Connell is back after a three-game ban for his red card at Wigan on New Year’s Day.

It’s a really positive one for us. He’s coming back like a new signing. We’ve missed him, he’s really important for us and connects the game really well. He shows intensity without the ball. We’re delighted to have Luca back, another number and body. He will be heavily involved moving forward.”