Ahead of our Boxing Day clash with West Bromwich Albion, Matt Rose heaped praise on the players for their performance against Millwall at the weekend.
Patrick Schmidt’s dramatic late winner sparked scenes of euphoria from the travelling Reds faithful, who had made the long journey to South East London and enjoyed a memorable afternoon at the Den.
Barnsley are now three games unbeaten in the Sky Bet Championship and are amongst the form sides in the division as they look to climb out of the bottom three over the festive period.
“If you look at the last five games; results have been brilliant,” insisted Rose. “Results make a huge difference to confidence and, especially Saturday’s game – the style to win it because it wasn’t the prettiest of games – spoke volumes. I’m hoping that will be the catalyst for more wins, more draws and being harder to beat.
“Within the game, we had a structure to fall back on. In the first 35 minutes, I thought Millwall peppered us to say the least, but I thought we defended superbly. The back four were excellent to keep us secure and then we managed to get to half-time and we spoke to them about holding the ball better, and after that we grew with the ball.
“Credit to the players, they took everything on board and I think they’re starting to believe a little bit more.”
Table-topping Baggies visit Oakwell on Thursday looking to extend their lead at the summit to six points over Leeds United, who host high-flying Preston North end in the late kick-off.
However, Slaven Bilić and his side will be wary of the threat posed by Barnsley after coming from two goals down to rescue a point in the reverse fixture back in October.
“We know in this league that anyone can beat anyone on any given day; we need to make sure that here – at home, with our fans – is a fortress,” continued Rose. “That should give us an extra 10% and hopefully that’ll be enough to win the game.
“We talked about the tactics used to exploit their weaknesses and also about where it went wrong, because to be in such a great position and throw it away wasn’t easy for them to take. We’ll have new, fresh approach, but we’ll obviously keep in mind the good performance that we had there and what we can take from it.”
You can watch Matt’s pre-match press conference on iFollow Barnsley.
