Chris Wood joins Barnsley on loan
West Bromwich Albion and New Zealand striker Chris Wood has joined Barnsley on an emergency loan deal for three months.
The teenager will be Barnsley’s second loan signing in two weeks after they brought in Birmingham City and Scotland striker Gary O’Connor.
The 6ft 2in 18 year old impressed in the World Cup in South Africa and will go straight into the Barnsley first team for Saturday’s Championship match against Reading. Wood has already played 13 times for his country and Barnsley will hope that the young
international will add goals to the teams play.
Wood joined the West Bromwich Albion academy in 2008. Since then, he has made 27 appearances for the first team and scored three goals. However, since being promoted to the Premier League the West Bromwich Albion manager Roberto Di Matteo has chosen to play
the forward in only two games.
Both appearances came from off the bench. He scored in one of the appearances against Leyton Orient in the Carling Cup and came on in the last few minutes of West Brom’s defeat to Liverpool in the Premier League.
Barnsley are currently in 10th position in the Championship. Their home form has been exceptional this season. They have been unbeaten in all four home games this season and scored nine goals. However, the Tykes have struggled away from home and have only
managed one draw.
The Barnsley manager Mark Robins will hope that Wood can adapt quickly to life at Oakwell. Despite Barnsley scoring a lot of goals at home they are short of quality strikers and Robins will feel that Wood and O’Connor will add some Premier League quality
to his side. The manager will hope that Wood can score the goals that will give them some much needed points away from home.
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