Heading into our Sky Bet Championship clash with Brentford on Sunday, Callum Styles insists confidence in the dressing room remains high following a string of impressive displays that have yielded little reward for the Reds.
Barnsley travel to the capital on the back of a 1-0 defeat against Chelsea in the Emirates FA Cup fifth round on Thursday night, but there were plenty of encouraging signs throughout the tie to suggest that the Reds can cause any team problems.
“We’re confident,” asserted Styles. “We had a really good game against Chelsea and, even though we didn’t get the result, the performance was positive, so we’ve just got to carry that on to Brentford and hopefully cause an upset.
“I’d probably say the last four games we’ve had really good performances. The results haven’t matched the performances, but we’re hoping that can change and we get both the result and the good performance.”
The Reds, of course, have fond memories from their last trip to Brentford as Styles and Clarke Oduor netted their first senior goals to secure the most incredible of great escapes on the final day of last season.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, with Barnsley in particular coming on leaps and bounds, but the 20-year-old says he won’t be spending time thinking about what happened in the past.
“Hopefully we can replicate what happened last season,” he continued. “I wouldn’t say it’s a more special fixture; I just see it as another game – another chance to play football, another chance to win, another chance to get three points.
“That’s all I’m focused on and that’s all the boys are focused on; getting the three points.”
Brentford ran out 1-0 winners at Oakwell earlier this campaign, with Ivan Toney’s glancing header all that separated the two sides in South Yorkshire.
It was a game where Barnsley approached it slightly more pragmatically than they have any other fixture under Valérien Ismaël, and Styles says the Reds won’t be as respectful of their opponents this time around.
“I think we were a bit naïve to let them play because that’s their strength,” he affirmed. “So we’re looking to force our game plan onto them, cause an upset and disrupt their flow.”