Daniel Stendel believes more defeats to fellow high-flyers will cost Barnsley in their hunt for automatic promotion this season but the coaching staff are encouraged following the trip to Sunderland.
The Reds’ six-match winning run came to an end this week with a 1-1 home draw against local rivals Doncaster Rovers then they went 3-0 down early on at second-placed Sunderland who won 4-2 and are now five points clear of them.
Stendel’s side have slipped down two places to fifth and are nine points adrift of leaders Portsmouth who are the next league visitors to Oakwell on December 15. With their next six league games until New Year’s Day all against sides currently in the top ten, the head coach admits the Reds must improve if they are to finish in the automatic promotion positions.
He told the Chronicle: “I think we are good enough to finish in the top two places but, to do that, we need to win games like the one in Sunderland. But we have 27 games which is a long time. We will come back.”
Stendel was frustrated with the ‘fear’ Barnsley displayed early on. He told the Chronicle: “The atmosphere was not so good in the dressing room after the match. We came to win and we were 3-0 down after 30 minutes so we all thought ‘what is that?’
“I was so disappointed with our mentality. We played with fear, especially in our defence. We got deeper and deeper and deeper. Why do we have fear when we play against Sunderland? Why? We are a good team and we can play so much better. It was a hard experience but we will learn from it.”
Stendel was pleased with the response to going 3-0 behind, adding: “We have a lot of character and a good mentality. Anyone who watched the game can see Sunderland aren’t five points better than us. But they have more experience than us, because our squad is very young.
“It was a good game from both teams. We will see them next year in Barnsley and we will show that we have learned from this game.”
Andreas Winkler, Stendel’s assistant, says the squad are taking positives out of the game in the North East. He said: “We can take a lot of encouragement. If you see the last ten minutes of the first half and the first 30 minutes of the second half and you were a neutral, you would not believe this was Sunderland.
“We launched waves and waves of attacks at them. If we had been more lucky we could have got the 3-3 goal then maybe we could have won the game.”
Winkler believes Barnsley need better leadership to guide them through difficult periods like when the Black Cats scored three goals in 15 first half minutes. He said: “It was a little bit curious. We saw two different halves. But we can take the second half and the reaction of the team to the disappointment of going 3-0 down into our next games.
“Sometimes the young age of the squad is a problem, we were intimidated after the 1-0 and then it was quickly 2-0 and 3-0. The players didn’t stick to the plan and play for each other. We had no real leader who could say ‘come on, stick together, play compact.’ But they were much better in the second half.”
