Head Coach, Gerhard Struber told us he was extremely unhappy with his side’s performance in their 4-2 loss to Portsmouth, resulting in Barnsley’s exit from the FA Cup, at the fourth round stage.
“I’m very unhappy with our performance,” Struber stated, post-match. “The spirit of our opponents showed us what you have to do to win a cup game.
“Our energy levels and movement on and off the ball were not enough to win the game. Our game is based around high energy, so this is concerning to me.”
Following a disappointing performance against Preston North End in midweek, Struber is eager to address the problems.
He explained, saying: “It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, it’s too quick for me to say. I must now watch the video of the match and analyse where we need to improve.
“But we must move the ball a lot quicker in tight areas, we took too long on the ball. Along with being able to deal with long balls defensively, not like how we did in the second half. We didn’t look like a Championship team.”
The Reds have struggled at times this season in certain areas of the pitch, which was highlighted today after conceding four goals. But Struber was disappointed with the overall performance of the squad, as he explained: “The performance for the whole game was not good enough, on the ball we weren’t good in our positioning, and in counter-attack situations, we weren’t good with our positioning either.
“Even when we scored we didn’t have a winning mentality to go on and get more. We had chances to equalise but over the whole game our opponents were better, and I congratulate them for that.”
New signing, Michael Sollbauer was called upon straight away to make his debut at Fratton Park. The Head Coach admitted that it was a big challenge for his fellow Austrian.
“It was a difficult first game, the opponents were very quick and physical in the air too. We will look to work and communicate with him and the rest of the players over the next week.
“We have quite a few days now to work on our energy levels and our positioning, which Is good. I think this will give us a kick to work even harder in training next week.”
For their next match, the Reds travel to Charlton Athletic for a huge game at the bottom of the table. “We have a very big game next week against Charlton, we have to get back that winning mentality that we have had in recent weeks. This is my big responsibility to do this, in the next few days.”
