Adam Murray says Barnsley are ‘a little bit gutted’ not to have won his first game in charge which was a 1-1 draw at home to Swansea City.
The Reds fell behind midway through the second half but Alex Mowatt levelled three minutes later. Caretaker manager Murray said: “I think before the game, with the team we were facing, we would have been satisfied with a point. But, with the way we performed, we are a little bit gutted. We had enough chances to win it, especially early on in the game.
“The reaction we showed from falling behind was one of the real positives of the day. The attitude overall was a real positive one and you could see the players have learned from the tough start to the season they have had. No one expected us to get anything today apart from within our four walls.
“I enjoyed the game, it could have been 4-4 with the chances created. I enjoyed the whole day apart from when we scored and I nearly pulled my hamstring.”
Asked if he expected to be in charge for Tuesday’s trip to West Bromwich Albion, Murray said: “I haven’t got a clue. We will see what happens in the next few days. At the moment my priority is to prepare the team as best I can for the following games and days as long as I am told to. We will come in tomorrow and prepare until we are told otherwise.”
Barnsley, who are winless in 11 matches, are now bottom of the Championship. Murray said: “It only has an impact if you speak about it. We didn’t expect to come into the Championship and be in the top six. We knew this season would be a real challenge and we would have to grind and fight and bite and scratch. Nothing will change until the end of the season, we’re in a fight and the players are growing every week.”
Murray praised the supporters for their backing throughout the match. He said: “The fans were fantastic. When we conceded I looked around at the fans and thought ‘this is going one of two ways because it’s the story of our season’. But credit to the fans and to the players, they reacted positively and you could see how much it meant to everybody when we got the equaliser.”
Both Bambo Diaby, who returned after missing the previous six games, and Dimitri Cavare came off with injuries. Murray said they had a calf and hamstring strain and are doubts for Tuesday.
Murray changed formation to 3-5-2. He said: “We have got a philosophy that overrides all the way from the first team to the academy and we felt that structure would help the players.
“It gave us a little bit more organisation and, when we were under the cosh, we still looked fairly solid. Fair play to the players because to take on that amount of information in ten days is really pleasing.”
Midfielder Kenny Dougall added: “Whenever you don’t win there is always a bit of disappointment. We were on top for most of the first half and had to score but ultimately we didn’t. It’s been a while since we got a point so we’ll take that.
“Swansea are flying and it looked tough when we went one down but we showed that, whatever gets thrown at us, we deal with it. Al scored a good goal and if anyone was going to win it at the end it was us. Overall, it was a great performance after the couple of weeks we have had.”
