It's a game we should have won, but there is no need for panic!

Going into the weekend, Town had a great opportunity to make it five wins from five, something they haven't done since 2003. Really they should have done against a Barnsley side missing key players through injury and with no points away from home so far this season.

The game started slowly and whilst Barnsley never really threatened, Town were not at their best. They were not poor either, just ticking along comfortably without showing the threatening attacking play we have recently become more accustomed to.

They stayed in the game and yet again when the opportunity did arise, the quality of the first goal continued to align with what we have seen so far this season.

Conor Chaplin, against his former club, curled a peach of a free-kick right into the top corner, giving the goalkeeper no chance. Yet again, Chaplin is showing why he should be one of the first names on the teamsheet this season, another excellent performance from the Town number 10.

He has since spoken of his motivation to get a goal against the team who he described as not being loyal to their players. It makes sense given another big turnaround in playing staff again this season.

I noticed a comment on my last blog regarding Leif Davis. I hadn't mentioned him and in hindsight I maybe should have called his improving performances.

On Saturday he delivered his best performance so far since arriving at Town. It has been discussed in the press and in many forums, but finally it looks Kieran McKenna's men are as lethal down the left-hand flank as they are down the right.

Davis sent in several dangerous balls, made overlapping runs, almost scored a great goal (if not for a good save from the goalkeeper) and should have won a blatant penalty. I will come on to the refereeing performance shortly.

The downside of the game was the nature in which Town conceded, especially the first goal. Only minutes after Chaplin scored a cracking free-kick, Barnsley wasted a similar set-piece opportunity on our goal, driving it straight into the wall.

Unfortunately Town were sloppy on picking up the second ball and the return cross was easily headed in by the Barnsley forward at knee-height. Both George Edmundson and Luke Woolfenden should have done better to head the ball clear.

Despite the setback, Town continued to press and their second half performance was greatly improved from the first. A quick release by Christian Walton saw Town break down the other end and this game's Wes Burns to Sam Morsy cutback (there seems to be at least one promising opportunity of the same kind in every game so far) rewarded Town with a deserved second goal.

Great to see another goal for the captain, who remains a class above other central midfielders in the division.

However, yet again, only minutes later, Town conceded again to a header from a ball whipped into the box. The second was not as poor as the first from Town's point of view as the Barnsley attacker did well, but there was no need for the Blues to get themselves into the position by taking their foot off the gas.

The game's controversial moment came between the two goals.

Marcus Harness, who was perhaps unlucky to be omitted from the starting line-up, scored what was a perfectly good goal by out-muscling the defender inside the box and coolly slotting it past the goalkeeper. As far as I am concerned town won this game 3-2... if only!

For some reason, still unbeknownst to everyone, including the Barnsley manager and press team (given the comments they have provided on the game) the referee disallowed the goal for a foul.

McKenna lost his cool with the officials in his post-match comments for the first time, but I am honestly surprised it has taken this long. Nobody wants to blame the match officials for results but time and time again the standard in league one is not good enough, and something I really hope the FA look at.

At least bring VAR in to the stadiums that can handle it - that is a bit biased to us as one of the few that can, but we have had some horrid decisions go against us over the last two years.

This season, so far, they have actually been pretty good until this game. There were some very strange decisions, but the disallowed goal and not awarding a penalty for the foul on Davis were really confusing decisions and did ultimately cost us the win.

That is not to say there weren't areas we can improve. McKenna will be sure to address this on the training ground this week. The positive is that we are making very few defensive errors and at least when they happened it resulted in a draw and not a loss. Some crumb of comfort to take from the game.

There is no need to panic. The second-half performance was still good enough to maintain momentum. Barnsley were a championship team last season and so a draw cannot be seen as a terrible result, even if we deserved more from the game.

We kept digging in and could have scored three right at the death. On another day Edmundson's header may have crept in rather than off the post. Kane Vincent-Young's flying header will have beaten 50 per cent of goalkeepers in this division. With a lucky deflection on another day, Sone Aluko's last-minute volley goes in.

It's all positive and Town will be sure to not let it hurt their confidence. They remain joint top, second only on goals scored and finish the first month of the season unbeaten. I for one am pleased with the start and see more positives than negatives

Accrington are a team we seem to struggle against away from home. It will be an interesting test to see if we can right that wrong next Saturday and let's go into that having picked up a cup win against Northampton on Tuesday.

It will be great to give Freddie Ladapo another game to help his confidence, as well as giving Dominic Ball and Richard Keogh their first starts of the season.

Uppa Town

Doc_Albran added 10:38 - Sep 2 Good write up - I agree there is no need to panic. won 4, drawn 2 and of the draws, Morsey should have scored in the last minute to beat Bolton and the Ref decisions stopped us winning against Barnsley - could be sitting here with 6 wins, although if this were last season we could easily be sitting here with 1 win, 3 draws and 2 defeats! My only concern is that we've played 4 lower end teams and won and played two top half teams and drawn - definitely harder times to come as we play Sheff Weds, Posh, Derby and Pompey - but at the moment the team's playing really well, keeping it tight (for the most part, still the occasional lapse to get the heart in the mouth!) and things look good. it's going to be a long season (especially with the World Cup break), but it's all trending in the right way at the moment. Just hope we've got McKenna bought into the long term project ala Burley/Sheepshank, so we don;t have a stella season and he then leaves us for Watford (or a.n.other generic premier League yoyo!)

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