Valerien Ismael hopes Barnsley are drawn against a 'big Premier League club' in the fourth round of the FA Cup after beating League Two Tranmere Rovers in the third round.
The Reds won thanks to second half goals by Michal Helik and Cauley Woodrow so will be in the fourth round draw tomorrow evening.
Ismael told the Chronicle: "We hope we play a Premier League team in the next round. The guys deserve a big highlight this season and I think it could be right for us to have a big name, if not now maybe in the round afterwards."
Ismael picked almost his strongest team, only swapping goalkeeper Brad Collins for the benched Jack Walton. He said: "I prepare for the next game against Swansea and I want to stay in rhythm with my team. It is very important for the guys to play every week. We have a normal week with only one game.
"I want to give the guys the signal from the manager that I want to go through and I take this competition very seriously. I wanted to play with my best players.
"It was a professional performance. It was a cup game and a fight. If you see the other results today, Leeds is out and there are a lot of very tight results. It was the same for us, a tough game, but we got the job done. We kept a clean sheet and scored twice.
"It is a good feeling finally to have a clean sheet. We have to stay this way now.
"Tranmere were strong and had a lot of energy. We weren't clinical in the first half with a chance for Dominik Frieser but we were patient. I told the guys at half-time we had to put more pressure on the opponent and we had to control the game more. The situations were dangerous for us but we defended our box very well and showed a good mentality."
Ismael took Dominik Frieser off at half-time and brought on Luke Thomas, who was involved in both goals, while Toby Sibbick made his first appearance since 2019 when he replaced Michael Sollbauer midway through the second half.
"We want to have more one v one situations with Luke Thomas. We saw the pitch was difficult for the defenders and we wanted a small guy with agility in a one v one situation.
"We also wanted to give Toby his first game and integrate him. It is important that Jordan Williams came back and Toby Sibbick played his first game for us."
Sibbick added: "We knew Tranmere would come here and make it hard for us so we knew we had to stay professional and keep playing like we had been playing in the last few weeks. It was hard but we got there in the end which was the main thing.
"It's been a long 11 months for me without playing any games so to be back out there with the boys just felt good and it was a breath of fresh air for me.
"We want that big away fixture like Man United away at Old Trafford. Hopefully we can keep going and get a game like that. I think we can beat any team on our day and we want to test ourselves against the big clubs."
