Assistant Head Coach, Andreas Winkler was delighted with the Reds' performance on the opening day against Oxford United.
Daniel Stendel’s right-hand-man discussed the match with iFollow Barnsley after the game, where he was full of praise for the youthful side following the 4-0 victory over Oxford United.
“It was a brilliant start to the season, a brilliant match from the whole squad and we are really happy with this,” stated Winkler.
“We’re really impressed with the second half, because I’m sure as you can imagine that after a first half like that you can come into the dressing room and think you have won the match. They didn’t think that though, they kept going and kept high pressing and always tried to score more goals. We pressed and pressed, which impressed!”
The pressing style has been much-talked about over the summer inside and outside of Oakwell. That type of play requires strong and athletic players to keep the tempo, so it was testament to the fitness of the squad that they could perform to that level.
“If we are honest we didn’t know if we could do that for 90 minutes, because pre-season is only six weeks and we didn’t have a competitive match. The first game was always going to be a surprise, now we know we can do it, and we did it well.”
There were three different scorers in the 4-0 victory, with only Brad Potts being a name that has netted in front of the Oakwell faithful previously. Mamadou Thiam scored two in the first half, before Victory Adeboyejo completed the rout with a neatly taken effort on his debut.
“I’m really happy for Victor, he had a really good pre-season and showed us that he is close behind Tom Bradshaw and Kieffer Moore, the Gaffer trusts him as his substitute and matches can be decided in the last 10 minutes so we need characters with good attitudes like Victor.
“I’m also really happy for Mama, I’m sure anyone can imagine how hard it must be for anyone his age to come from a different country to Barnsley and have a season like that, it wasn’t easy for him. Now though, everyone can be happy for Mama, he’s showing why he’s an important player for Barnsley Football Club!”
You can watch Andreas' post-match reaction in full over on iFollow Barnsley.
