Gerhard The Man For Tough Survival Fight

Last updated : 20 November 2019 By Rob Miles

The long wait is over, 43 days after the abrupt sacking of Daniel Stendel, Barnsley today finally announced his replacement.
42 year old Austrian Gerhard Struber has been handed the unenviable task of saving the Reds from the drop, taking over a team who are on thier longest winless run in 60 years and currently five points adrift of safety.

Struber arrives in England with a positive pedigree having started his coaching career with Red Bull Salzburg's youth team before moving on to FC Liefering in 2017.

He took over Austrian Bundesliga team Wolfsberger in May 2019 after Christian Ilzer left to join fellow top flight outfit Austria Wien and had won 10 of his 20 games this season to lead them to third place whilst also overseeing four games in the Europa League in which his side only managed to win one and currently sit bottom of Group J.

In another change to the backroom team popular first team coach Chris Stern who became famous for his "get in" responses following victories in last season's promotion campaign has departed and been replaced by former Arsenal, QPR and Yeovil defender Matthew Rose who has been coaching with Arsenal's Elite Grecian Academy in Athens.

Struber's appointment is the third successive permanent Barnsley manager to be foreign, prior to this sequence the club had employed only one in their entire history - Gudjon Thordarson.