Sam Cosgrove insists Barnsley FC’s home record is not preying on their minds after another defeat
Sam Cosgrove insists Barnsley FC’s home record is not preying on their minds after another defeat
Some patterns are starting to emerge in Barnsley’s League One campaign but forward Sam Cosgrove is not worried that the negative ones could do psychological damage.
Instead, he thinks there are valuable lessons to be learnt.
As Cosgrove says, seventh after 10 games, a point outside the play-off places, represents a decent start under new coach Neill Collins.
The negative is four home defeats out of six, all against sides in the top part of what in recent seasons has been a division of two halves. The latest was Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Blackpool.
Asked if losing to Peterborough, Oxford United, Portsmouth and now the Tangerines at Oakwell could play on the mind, he replied: “I don’t think so. Especially under this manager I think we approach every game individually.
“After a good win last week there was no mention of that this week, it was just we’ve got to go out there and do our job. I don’t think it becomes a psychological thing but as a pretty young side I think we’ve got a lot to learn from Saturday.
“Blackpool did a job on us, it was a smash and grab.
“They got the goal early on and held onto it. We just couldn’t break them down. From their point of view it’s a perfect away performance, for us it’s another extremely disappointing home game.
“We’ve got to make sure we analyse this game, learn from it and make sure we change our ways going forward.
“I think on the balance of play we definitely deserved an equaliser if not a few goals so we could be sat here in a completely different position after scoring two goals in the second half and winning 2-1.
“We definitely showed enough to win the game but these things can happen.
“We’ve got to learn from a game management point of view to tighten up and make sure we don’t concede. That gives us a platform to win the game.”
And there is no cause for panic after a good opening to the season.
“I think it’s been a solid enough start,” reflected Cosgrove.
“If you’d asked people at the start of the season would they take it, I think they would because it’s a platform for us to build on.
“A big thing for us is we know there’s a hell of a lot to come so if we can get our act together in the next few weeks I think we can be firing at the top end of the table.”
Barnsley are at Cambridge United on Tuesday, the first of three consecutive away games.
Leave a Reply