55-year-old ruled out of running for Barnsley job

Barnsley are currently on the hunt for a new manager after being relegated back down to League One – and in their pursuit for someone to lead them straight back into the Championship, they have decided not to move for Paul Cook as reported by The Star.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Tykes were scaling the heights of the second tier, with Valerien Ismael leading them into the play-offs and almost to the Premier League.

They didn’t quite achieve that feat but the manager left for West Brom along with star player Alex Mowatt and the side began to tail off. They dropped down to the relegation zone and despite an upturn in fortunes of sorts come the turn of the year, they were unable to pull away from relegation.

Now, with the prospect of at least one campaign in the third tier looming, they have a vacant spot in the manager’s hot-seat to fill and it looks as though it won’t be filled by Paul Cook. That’s because Barnsley CEO Khaled El-Ahmad has confirmed that the boss is not in the running for the job – and it looks as though they will be looking elsewhere for candidates.

The current Chesterfield boss has plenty of EFL experience and has taken teams out of League One before. He led Wigan to the title and into the Championship previously and has also claimed the fourth tier title with Chesterfield and Portsmouth to boot.

Cook, 55, is a winner then – but having dropped down to non-league, it looks like Barnsley won’t be giving him a way back into the EFL.

The Verdict

Paul Cook had seemingly been one of the contenders for the vacant Barnsley job but those claims appear to have now been rubbished by the club’s CEO.

The manager does have pedigree at this level but perhaps not enough to warrant the Tykes taking a risk on him