After making his return to the starting lineup at the weekend, Reds forward Jacob Brown spoke positively despite Barnsley falling to a late defeat against Leeds United.
Jacob Brown’s “Proud moment” in Barnsley red may be overshadowed by the result in the 2-0 defeat to Yorkshire rivals Leeds United, but after five months out with injury, the former Reds academy star was delighted to be back on the pitch and insists there is still a lot more to come from both himself and his teammates.
Sunday afternoon marked the 21-year-old skilful attacker’s first ever Sky Bet Championship start although he is living the dream playing in the second tier of English football, the frontman was still disappointed with the full-time result, as Barnsley succumbed to their fourth league defeat of the season, despite putting in a solid performance at Oakwell.
A goal from substitute Eddie Nketiah followed by a Mateusz Klich penalty secured the victory for Leeds in a tightly contested game and Brown feels the Reds were unlucky not to earn at least a point from the match.
“I thought we did well for most of the game. We stuck to our plan and at 0-0 we had a few good chances and we maybe should have scored. We lost a bit of concentration towards the end and it cost us.
“They [Leeds] are one of the best teams in the league, so for us to go out and play the way we did, is really good and I think we can definitely take a lot of positives from the performance. We know that if we play this way every week, then we are going to pick up points.”
After a long road to recovery, Brown couldn’t wait to return to the grass and was happy to mark his first appearance of the season in front of the Barnsley faithful with a good display which was almost capped off with an early in the second half.
Speaking about being out injured and his return to the first team squad, he said: “Obviously, it was hard for me at the end of last season getting injured, so I’ve been working hard with the physios and the sports scientists off the pitch to get back out there. To be able to do that in front of the home crowd again was a great feeling.
“I’ve been back in training for a few weeks now with the ball at my feet. I think I’ve still got a lot more to come in the next couple of weeks, but for my first game back, I thought I did alright.”
Two years on from making his Championship debut away at Brentford, Brown was pleased to finally get a taste of the action from the start and now he hopes it’s just the beginning of a long and successful career across England’s top divisions.
“Obviously, it was a proud moment for me because I came through the academy here. After being out for five months, to come back and play against a team like Leeds, it is hard, but I can take positives from it and I just want to keep playing at the highest level I can.”
