Town manager Roy Keane was understandably disappointed with his side's 3-1 home defeat to Barnsley. In addition to the loss, Mark Kennedy and Luke Hyam damaged their hamstrings and are out of next week’s trip to Hull.
Keane said the game typified how things are at the present time: "Poor result, poor performance, not a great day and a couple more injuries. That’s the way it’s going for us. No sympathy, we’ll look to bounce back next weekend.”
The Portman Road crowd booed their team off and were vocally critical of the substitution of Tamás Priskin, something the Blues boss feels is inevitable when a team is doing poorly: "When you don’t win matches every decision is going to be analysed and criticised, that’s the nature of football.
"They were pretty supportive last year when we went 14 games without a victory - the Watford game I’ll never forget - they were very, very good to us. But at this moment in time, you’re still hoping that fans would understand where we’re at.
"Don’t underestimate the loss of Gareth McAuley, David Norris and Grant Leadbitter. I don’t want to use that as an excuse but they are important players for us. We just have to get on with it.”
Keane explained the thinking behind his substitutions: "We thought we’d get a bit more from Jack and Jake getting a bit more forward. They’re two young players and it’s a big responsibility doing a job in the middle of the park, so with the extra support from Luke we thought we might get back into it.
"But, of course, the next goal changed things and we tried to mix it up again. We tried a few different things and it just didn’t work.”
Keane's controversial decision to withdraw Priskin was amongst those alternative options: "When we took Tamás off we changed it with Connor going up with Ronan and actually I thought they did OK in the last 20 minutes. OK, they’re young players and you could say the game was over.
"Obviously there were a few people disappointed and they probably thought we were going to stick with the one up front, but of course we changed that with Jack coming over to the left and I thought Ronan did quite well and was perhaps unlucky not to score. It was a straight swap in that sense."
Tykes manager Mark Robins was delighted with his players’ display: "It was without doubt the best performance since I became Barnsley manager and it was a continuation of what we saw on Tuesday night against Preston.
"The players took the confidence they gleaned from that game into today. We passed it well, the movement was fantastic and what we added today was our finishing. It's a step in the right direction and pleasing.”
Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk