Barnsley head coach Jose Morais has said the side need to stop making life difficult for themselves with two faced performances following defeat to Middlesbrough at the weekend.
Heading to the Riverside Stadium, Barnsley suffered a three one defeat to Tony Pulis’ side and with it again being more of a tale of two halves, Morais told the Official Site that if we are to give ourselves hope of avoiding relegation this term we have to stop giving ourselves a mountain to climb in the opening 45 before showing improvement after the break.
‘We had two faces, as we’ve seen in previous games of late. The first half was something I don’t recognise in my team. In the second they are much better. But we expected them to start in a different way, with more quality. We know we were facing a good team, they’re very strong but we were prepared for that. But we conceded two goals in very short minutes, so we were way behind so early on.’
Morais went on to say.
‘This reduced our possibilities. And in the midfield we weren’t organised as we’d like today, and this provoked an imbalance in our side. Our opponents took advantage of us, and despite trying to rectify things in the second half, the damage was done.’
With plenty of positives on display from the second half efforts, Morais was pleased by that but he knew it had come too late.
‘We got the goal. And we should maybe have added one or two more, we were very good and interesting in the period around that first goal from Kieffer Moore. It was a more stable game and we created situations to score. I think the boys they realised eventually that they could hurt the opponent, and that if they start the game like this they can take points in games no matter what team we are playing against. But it’s simple, we must start better in the beginning. We can’t wait 45 minutes to make things happen in a game, we have to start in a different posture.’
With five changes to the starting line up, the Portuguese explained his thinking behind that.
‘It is imperative that we refresh the players, if we are to be competitive we must take in mind the amount of games we are playing. We have two home games in the next seven days. So to rotate the players, today I felt the players would solve the game in a good way, but it wasn’t to be.’
He added.
‘To rotate is important. By refreshing the team we can have a different energy. I hope we can have Brad Potts back in contention next week. The midfield is a key zone for us and Potts is a strong possibility in our midfield so hopefully he can be available in the next game. The players they are not machines, so we have to rest them accordingly. But we must now look to bounce back and re-focus. And that means Tuesday night against Norwich City. It’s at home and we’re looking forward to getting back to Oakwell.’
