Having made his full debut in Saturday’s clash with Bournemouth, academy graduate Matty Wolfe says he was ‘buzzing’ to get an opportunity to impress from the start.
The 21-year-old, who has been with the club for over a decade, was lively from the off and put in the kind of performance to suggest he had been playing at this level for several years.
“I’m buzzing to get out there and start for the first time,” he beamed. “It’s just a shame about the result – I thought we did well; we had a lot of chances, but just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net.
“But that’s what happens sometimes in football; you’ve just got to keep going to the next game.”
A productive loan spell in Denmark with Esbjerg fB yielded 18 appearances in all competitions for our talented midfielder as he experienced regular first team football in the first half of the season.
A previous stint away from Oakwell with Notts County didn’t quite work out as planned for Wolfe as injury hampered his development at Meadow Lane, but his time in Scandinavia proved to be fruitful and he returned to South Yorkshire ready to compete for a starting berth.
“I think I needed it, to be fair, to get some games,” he continued. “The difference in quality from there to here is leaps and bounds – you can’t compare them.
“It’s Championship football and it’s just another level.”
This was his second Reds appearance of the campaign, having featured fleetingly in the 3-0 loss at Nottingham Forest last Tuesday evening.
Despite the weekend’s defeat to Bournemouth, Wolfe insists it was a much-improved display from Barnsley and believes they can build on this heading into the visit of Cardiff City on Wednesday.
“I think we were a lot more compact and safe,” he discussed. “Obviously, the wind played a big part and sometimes they had balls over the top, but I thought we were better going forward.
“We had spells where we could have put the ball in the net, but it just didn’t happen for us.
“The lads said it after the game, they’re one of the best teams in the league and we’ve had chances to either get a result or get three points.
“We just need to keep going and doing what we’ve been doing. We just need three points,however we’re going to get them; we have to keep fighting and doing our best, and hopefully they’ll come.”
