Barnsley assistant coach Andreas Winkler says they are ‘really disappointed’ to go out of the Checkatrade Trophy against Manchester City under 21s.
The young visitors won 5-3 in the shoot-out following a 3-3 draw at Oakwell on Tuesday. Winkler said: “We are really disappointed. We wanted to go to Wembley for the final. It is a good competition, especially if you want to give gametime to some players.
"We want to win every match so it is does not feel good. I have never seen as pacy a team as Manchester City. They have lots of money to spend on players, even in their academy, so they had lots of talent in their team. There is nothing like that team in League One so it was a different challenge.”
The Reds missed a series of chances, including a penalty which Cauley Woodrow saw saved at 3-2. Winkler said: “The penalty is one thing but we had a lot of other chances. We have to be more ruthless and clinical. We conceded three goals and then we had to score four to win. We need to defend better.”
Winkler praised 19-year-old right-back Jordan Williams who scored Barnsley’s first goal then scored the second which was the first of his career. He said: “We are happy with him, he deserved to score and he had a very good match against a very very quick player (Rabbi Matondo).”
City’s manager is former Barnsley under 23s boss and first team caretaker Paul Harsley who moved from Oakwell in June. He said: “I am really proud. We had a really young team against very strong League One and Championship players. The game looked like it might be too much for us in the first half but they dug in and stuck at it. We equalised and, in the second half, it was anyone’s game.”
