Daniel Stendel thought his Barnsley team could have won at Birmingham City until a mistake led to the hosts taking the lead on 69 minutes.
Cameron McGeehan’s pass to Mads Andersen led the away side losing the ball and the home side scoring the opener. The Blues added another eight minutes later and the Reds have now lost both their away matches this season.
Head coach Stendel told the Chronicle: “It’s hard, hard for the team and the players. We fight so much for a good result and one mistake in the Championship is a goal. At the moment, we give the other teams too easy goals.
“The fans can see the team tries to win points, also in away games. But it’s not League One, it’s not easy. All newly-promoted teams find it hard, every week is new. But, when we keep together, we have chances to win games.”
Stendel added: “After the 2-0 defeat, we are very disappointed. Until the first goal we played a good away game and Birmingham didn’t really have chances. For us it was also difficult to create chances but we had good situations and we played better in the second half. I thought we had the chance to win the game but we presented a goal and that made it difficult. It was very hard to see us do that which made it a different game - it was very frustrating.
“We were better in the second half than Birmingham but 1-0 changed the situation so much. You could see after that we were very nervous , we lost our structure and it is difficult to change the result.”
Barnsley have not won in their last four matches as the Reds adapt after going up from League One. Stendel said: “It’s like the last two games, we played OK. It is not so easy for a young team to play in this stadium.
“We need time but we don’t have much in the Championship. It’s a very difficult situation but we can only think positive for the next game against Luton on Saturday and we have chances to take points.”
Cauley Woodrow missed the game due to injury. Stendel said: “He has a little injury after Saturday. We thought he could play but he pulled up in training yesterday. We tried today but he said he cannot play and we are a little bit disappointed. I think he can play on Saturday. Today was too short a time but I think he can play on Saturday."
Right-back Dimitri Cavare was left out of the 18-man squad. Stendel said: “We decided that Dani Pinillos is in the squad and Ben Williams played well on Saturday. Toby Sibbick has played well in four games and we decided we don’t need four full-backs in the squad.
“It will be hard to keep them all happy but every player has a chance to play well and, when he doesn’t play, I expect that he trains well and shows me he can play. Especially after a game like this, everyone has a chance to play the next game.”
