After a very early effort, Barnsley were hardly an attacking threat until just before half time. They put us under pressure and scored a tap in after we backed off them in the box. From that point, we stopped doing all of the good things we'd done. We were rash in possession, the ball bounced off Parkin, we headed balls into the air and stopped using the wide men, who'd been superb for half of the game.
The 2nd goal was poor defending and the 3rd was abysmal. At 2-2, we lost Marney (groin strain) which was a hammer blow and Fagan blazed a wonderful chance over the bar, which threw the game away.
We've played 180 minutes of the season, and for half of that, we've been excellent. Solid at the back, slick in midfield and effective up front but the other half hasn't been good enough. We have to concentrate on the positives and learn to perform like that over 90 minutes of each game. For most of the first half, we moved forward in waves. Last season, there were lots of games where the oppo's appeared to have 15 men and we had 8. The 2nd half was like that, with the ball falling to a red shirt repeatedly. The first wasn't though, we had 6 men in every attack and 8 in defence.
Myhill dealt well with almost everything. His positioning is superb, it's amazing how many shots hit him straight in the chest. He was possibly at fault for the 3rd goal, Ricketts headed poorly but Bo wasn't strong enough and flapped at the ball. Ricketts looked immense for a half, superb tackling, heading positioning and passing. He was very shaky after the break, but like the rest of the side, it'll come. Turner and Delaney were exposed by the pace of the Barnsley side, and in the middle third, lost a lot of battles with Richards in the air. Dawson struggled with Devaney, who was superb and a very tricky opponent. Devaney ran rings around us in a game for Cheltenham at Boothferry a few years ago.
The midfield were excellent early on, playing great football, playing it very quickly and digging in to help out the defence. It's hard to judge where they went wrong after the break. They possibly struggled to keep the work rate at the level they'd set, and possibly showed some experience in chasing the game. The quick, easy passing disappeared.
Up front, The Beast was awesome. He thrived on the quality service from the wide players and the good service into him from the back, picking out team mates. As we struggled, he tried more complex passes and it didn't come off. Duffy ran himself into the ground again and linked up well, but had no look in front of goal again. As the game went on, we consistently played balls into him that he had to fight Paul Reid for and that was a no contest. We have to be smarter with how we use him. No-one came off the subs bench and made an impact. Andrews was poor, every second touch a tackle. Elliott didn't look like he could beat anyone, and the limited chances he had to cross where wasted. Burgess chased around and jumped at a few things, but wasn't going to win a lot. He's not a big lump who'll win headers, he's a much better player than that and we have to give the ball to his feet and play off him.
The referee was good. A couple of strange decisions, notably Fagan's booking for sticking out his bum to hold off a defender. Like most refs, he gave little to strikers when they were getting nudged in the back. On the whole, though, he was fair to both teams and got big decisions correct.
A frustrating, gutting evening, but one with plenty of positives and lots of promise. We can work on the errors. The players will gain experience and learn to be calmer under pressure. We have to take the great 40 minutes against WBA and the great 40 tonight and use it as the example of how we want to play. If Peter Taylor had been in charge, we wouldn't have lost that game, because we'd have closed the game at 2-0. As a fan, tonight was much more exciting. It was almost Keegan-esque. I'm not sure parky likes that though, and I don't think we'll see that sort of collapse again.
Ratings: Bo 7, Ricketts 6, Dawson 6, Turner 6, Delaney 6, Fagan 6, France 7, Welsh 7 (Elliott), Marney 8 (Andrews), Parkin 8 (Burgess), Duffy 7.