Wanderers 2 BARNSLEY 0 TWO cracking goals, a commanding performance, three comfortable points and back in the top three ... who needs more players?

Sam Allardyce couldn't have picked a worse weekend to press his case for transfer funds to reinforce his squad for the big promotion push.

Oliver Twist had more chance of getting seconds!

But Big Sam is hungry for success and he's under no illusions. If he doesn't get the three players he wants and he doesn't get them soon, he knows Wanderers will be in no position to sustain a serious challenge for a return to the Premiership.

The danger is that the more his make-do-and-mend team defies the odds and keeps pace with the Fulhams and the Watfords, the less chance he has of convincing the debt-ridden directors of Burnden Leisure to speculate. Especially since the three positions he has highlighted - striker, winger and central defender - were all more than adequately manned as Wanderers beat Barnsley for the first time in nine attempts ... and far more convincingly than the scoreline suggests.

Who needs a striker when Michael Ricketts is in such a rich vein of scoring form? His 11th of the season, sweetly swept in at the near post from Gareth Farrelly's superb cut-back, was his sixth in seven games and proved he has a goalscorer's instinct to go with the pace and power that have been the main features of his performances up to know. With Bo Hansen prepared to run himself to a standstill and Dean Holdsworth returning to a hero's reception after his six match lay-off, it could be argued Wanderers are actually well off in the attacking department. And with Farrelly making such a valuable contribution on the left and the remarkably fit-again Ricardo Gardner looking more effective than ever on the right (an astute tactical switch if ever there was one) what does Sam want with another winger? He could hardly have asked for more from the Jamaican, whose sensational 30-odd-yard strike for the second goal could not have been more fitting or more poignant - his first goal since he suffered serious knee ligament damage eight months earlier ... at Barnsley!

But it was the performance of Paul Warhurst at centre-back, just days after Mark Fish's transfer to Charlton, that probably did more damage to the manager's case than anything else in a game that was so one-sided in the second half that even Tykes' boss 'Harry' Bassett suggested his team were feeling sorry for themselves.

Barnsley threatened on a couple of occasions in the first half and it took a smart intervention by Kevin Nolan to prevent Uruguayan substitute Mateo Carbo pulling one back seven minutes from time which, considering Wanderers' penchant for conceding late goals, would have made for a nail-biting finale. But the classy Warhurst, making his first league start of the season, helped Gudni Bergsson give a master class at the heart of a defence that kept its first clean sheet in six games.

"We didn't miss Mark Fish at any stage," Allardyce said, as much out of relief as satisfaction.

Condemned out his own mouth? Not a chance. This manager is far too shrewd to incriminate himself and was quick to stress: "That doesn't mean we shouldn't go out and improve our squad as quickly as we can!" And he's right, of course. Wanderers have done well to stabilise after going through a dodgy spell and all credit to them for re-establishing themselves as a force in the promotion race.

But no-one should be getting carried away after a victory over one of the weakest teams Barnsley have turned out in this fixture for many a year.

Apart from an off-target Bruce Dyer header at the back post just after Gardner's super strike had brought the entire stadium to its feet, their response was woeful. Apart from few testing crosses, Jussi Jaaskelainen hardly had a thing to do!

Had Hansen shown the composure to match his energy and if Holdsworth's aim had been better just after he'd galloped on for his first appearance since limping out of the Wolves game four weeks earlier, Wanderers would have had a handful.

But the nearest they came to extending the lead they established in the 28th minute was when Ricketts got on the end of John O'Kane's cross and saw his header beat Kevin Miller only to bounce clear off the post!

Allardyce showed how relaxed he was by sending on Italian teenager Emanuel Morini for his first taste of senior action - albeit so late in the game that the kid didn't have time to lay boot on ball.

Wanderers, looking comfortably balanced in their 4-4-2 formation, really were on easy street. But they aren't kidding themselves. They know the goals came at just the right time to boost their own confidence and undermine Barnsley's and they know they'll face considerably harder tasks than this if they are to consolidate their position as a force to be reckoned with.

Allardyce has made it patently clear that, with the rigours of a long, hard winter ahead, he cannot possibly rely on a skeleton squad to see him through.

Apart for an extra goal or two he couldn't have asked for more from his players on Saturday but he's still pestering his chairman with that begging bowl.