Andreas Winkler is confident that Barnsley can progress to the Emirates FA Cup third round if they repeat Tuesday evening’s second half performance against Sunderland.
The Reds, trailing 3-0 after 32 minutes at the Stadium of Light, reduced the arrears before the interval and netted another just after the hour mark but were unable to find the all-important equalising goal.
Eventually, the Black Cats were able to capitalise on gaps at the back to kill the game off as Barnsley pushed forward to salvage a point, but there were plenty of positives to take from a battling display.
“It was a curious match – there were two different halves,”admitted Winkler. “But we’ll take the second half into our FA Cup match on Saturday because of the reaction of the team and how they reacted to the disappointment of being 3-0 down.
“The Gaffer said we had nothing to lose – it doesn’t matter if we lose 5-1; we had to try and come back and bring our match to them, and that’s what we did. We didn’t have enough to get level, but the second half was a really good performance.”
Kieffer Moore put in a magnificent display in the north east – scoring twice and causing the Black Cats’ defence no ends of problems throughout the course of the game.
The Reds’ hitman has now taken his tally to 12 for the season and isn’t showing any signs of slowing as the fixtures start to pile up in December.
“As a striker, you want to score and he scored two times so he did his job well,”continued Winkler. “He’s not pleased, though, because we didn’t win. If you score twice away then you try to get a point at least, so he’s not happy. But it’s good for him to get back his self-confidence as a prolific goal scorer.”
Attention now turns to Roots Hall on Saturday where Barnsley are aiming to secure a place in the next round of the FA Cup.
The Shrimpers are currently 14th in Sky Bet League One and come into the game off the back of a 2-0 victory over Scunthorpe United on Tuesday.
Chris Powell’s side needed a replay to overcome League Two Crawley Town to reach this stage – which they did in emphatic style with a 6-2 win after extra time at the Checkatrade.com Stadium.
Moore was on target the last time the two sides met at Oakwell earlier this month as he headed home a late winner, and Winkler believes it will be a stern encounter this weekend.
“We’re playing away, so it will be a totally different match on Saturday,”insisted the Reds’ Assistant Head Coach. “It’s a long journey – the longest since I’ve been here, so we’ll have to step up our efforts to progress to the next round.
“We have a young squad with lots of players who can be in the starting eleven who don’t differentiate whether it’s the FA Cup or a league match. We will show our best performance to win this match and hopefully get a top opponent in the next round, but I’m sure it will be a very tough match.”
You can watch Andreas’ full press conference on iFollow Barnsley.
