Despite seeing his new team put in an impressive performance on the road, Gerhard Struber admitted he felt frustrated with the result when giving his post-match reaction at Ewood Park.
The Reds were beaten 3-2 by Blackburn Rovers on Saturday in the Sky Bet Championship with a late Bradley Dack winner condemning Barnsley to a 10th defeat of the season.
In position for just four days, Struber quickly pointed out where the Reds went wrong against Tony Mowbray’s men.
“I think the performance was okay,” the new Head Coach began.
“We make a good game, but also we make mistakes. And those mistakes, they break our game plan.
“When I look back at this game I know I will see good performances, good moments and some very good situations, with the ball, on the ball, but off the ball we have much to learn.
“There has to be 90 minutes of high concentration, high focus because mistakes will undo our good work. We need to work hard with the players so that we are better in the next games.”
The bottom-of-the-table Reds looked anything but basement boys for much of Saturday afternoon’s enthralling contest. Twice levelling the clash in the second half, there looked to be only one winner as we edged towards full time.
But the Reds’ bad habit of switching off cost them at least a point, leaving a painful feeling for Gerhard in his first match as new Barnsley boss.
He told us: “I think we were the better team, we created great openings and chances, we had control of this match especially after half-time.
“But from set-pieces we don’t cover the opponent and that’s that, then we lose and anything good is undone.
“We need three points but all I feel after this is pain.”
Struber remains confident in his side’s ability to improve and to learn from these setbacks.
He also admitted that another game coming up in just a few days time away at the Riverside will give his players the opportunity to correct their errors and get a result that everyone craves.
“We learn every day, we will learn in every game. This time I learn that our focus and concentration has to be right for 90 minutes, every second. If the players can improve that, if we work hard at this in training and in the next games, we will have the chance to come away with the three points that we deserve.
“It’s positive that on Wednesday we have a quick chance to turn things around. The boys are disappointed in there, but I told them to stay strong because apart from the mistakes, we showed a good performance.”
Our Head Coach ended by thanking the 1,300+ supporters who backed his side throughout at a cold Ewood Park but ultimately saw their team come up short once more.
“There was great support in the crowd from our fans and I hope that on Wednesday they support us like that again in Middlesbrough because it’s a big help for my players and for me also.”
Tickets for our trip to Boro on Wednesday 27th November remain on sale.
