Barnsley manager Michael Duff felt his team shot themselves in the foot as they were beaten 3-0 by the Blues at Oakwell.

Duff, whose side were chasing a 10th home win on the bounce for the first time since a 12-game winning streak at Oakwell in 1914/15, gave Town as good a game as anyone in the Blues’ own recent run, 12 wins out of 13, but were made to pay for errors, two of them on the stroke of half-time.

“We got beaten by a good team,” Duff told the Yorkshire Post. “It sounds a stupid comment, but I thought we were the better team in the first half and we go 2-0 down.

“In the big games, it's big moments. If you strip it right back, they missed a penalty which wasn't a penalty in my opinion and we conceded a goal from a set play and conceded from two straight balls down the pitch.

“For all their good football, we shot ourselves in the foot. With the couple of chances they have had, they have taken them and with the moments we had, we didn't quite do it.

“If we are going to get beaten, I'd rather get beaten playing the way we play. We wanted to get in their faces and press them and we showed some good quality and good passages of play.

“But ultimately, we shoot ourselves in the foot with poor goals, which was unlike us. It's very rarely that someone whacks the ball down the pitch and we get caught like that. Credit to them, they are a good team with good players.

“But there are positives within it, once you take away the emotion of the game. We were beaten 3-0 at home earlier this season and the reaction of the supporters who were here and stayed until the end told you everything.

“We have talked all season about building relationships with the team and supporters and if we'd been beaten 3-0 earlier in the season, we'd have been booed off. They got clapped off today as we'd just broken a 100-year record.

“There's lots of positives. Most people would have taken fourth in the league. Yes, it's disappointing as we have been chasing the top three for a long, long time. We were brave and got beaten and move on.

“This game was based on moments and that's what the big games are [based on].”

Photo: Matchday Images

Vancouver_Blue added 00:26 - Apr 26 The first half was quite even until we scored. But Barnsley never seriously worried us did they?
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Fatboy added 02:10 - Apr 26 Aside from the goals, the next four best chances all went to us - the penalty, Luongo hitting the bar and two misses from Hirst.
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AbujaBlue added 05:47 - Apr 26 According to opposition managers, our last 6 goals have all been 'poor' from their side of things. Still, at least this manager is a step up from whiny Ferguson.
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ArnieM added 06:24 - Apr 26 Oh he's forgotten we hit the underside of the bar, and missed a sitter then! And it WAS a penalty ( 2nd Barnsley player took Burns legs) … and it all makes up for the perfectly good disallowed goal at PR) . Couldn't give a flying one about coulda , would a, shoulda…… this is OUR TIME 👍
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barrystedmunds added 06:34 - Apr 26 Who clapped you off? They'd all gone home by the time our third went in!!!
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Saxonblue74 added 06:54 - Apr 26 Another manager finding it hard to offer credit to the best team in the league this season, some saying best lge 1 has ever seen. Hit the woodwork, missed at least 1 good chance and missed a penalty but still won 3-0. How conclusive can it be?! They're one of the best and most entertaining sides we've faced but didn't really threaten much, not even when they were the "better team" in the first half!!? As for the penalty he's moaning about, there were very few complaints on the pitch!

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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 07:51 - Apr 26 "[We] conceded a goal from a set play and conceded from two straight balls down the pitch." Yes Michael, but they are still goals! We scored them, and your team didn't manage to (because our defensive organisation was so good and we were good enough up front to make the most of our opportunities). You put up a good show in the first half without really getting close to scoring, but to suggest that you were the better team is stretching it considerably. And in the second half, you were lucky you didn't lose by 4 or 5. Anyway, good luck in the playoffs.

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Europablue added 07:53 - Apr 26 I think we can be a bit magnanimous in victory. If we let in those three goals we wouldn't be happy. Defensively they were poor goals, but from our side you can see how well the attackers took them. I don't think he necessarily wrong, we rode out the storm in the first half and took our chances to make it 2-0. That's the reason we are such a great side though. It wasn't so long ago that we were the team that played really well, didn't take our chances and had a hard luck story to tell every other week. Barnsley are in a different stage of their development. We are ready for the Championship. It's actually better for us to have had time to build up our team rather than sneaking through via the playoffs last year in that respect.

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Jugsy added 09:30 - Apr 26 It all depends on your side of the fence - as always! First goal we were sharper than them and found a ridiculous gap to put the ball into the net. Second, Hirst shows amazing strength and composer and sticks it in the far side from the edge of the box. Third, we catch them all out of position and take advantage - arguably the only poor goal. Hard to call the first two poor goals. Barnsley certainly edged us in possession in the first half, but did nothing with it. Much like our performance against Bristol Rovers away (although we had way more possession that night), no good having loads of the ball but no product. We shut the door, kept it tight and struck well. Not our best performance on the night but still a great one made up of hard fought battles and clinical goals.

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BobbyBell added 09:35 - Apr 26 We are the best at set plays so you should have been prepared. If you conceded from two straight balls then maybe KM had spotted a weakness which we exploited. KM knows everything about our opponents and drills our team to nullify their threats and expose their weaknesses. Our squad is like a highly tuned engine which is tweaked and set up for each and every event.
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Radlett_blue added 09:47 - Apr 26 Interesting that Duff said Barnsley are "chasing top 3". Maybe someone should tell him?
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Bert added 09:55 - Apr 26 Clapped off ? More like crapping themselves ! Apart from that I would agree that for the first 30 minutes they shaded it but in the second half we were magnificent in defence and attack.
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chepstowblue added 11:56 - Apr 26 We undoubtedly deserved to win. But alongside playing very very well we are also getting the rub at present. No way was that a penalty, Hirst should have gone for the hand in the face(although his first yellow was ridiculous), and Morsy could have had a straight red for a two footer. Churlish to think that the outcome would have been different. We made a potentially uncomfortable evening feel relatively straightforward. So close, but nowhere near done as yet.

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BobbyBell added 12:26 - Apr 26 That was a top class away performance. I don't think Barnsley seriously threatened our goal, just a few half chances. We may have got the rub on some decisions but earlier in the season the decisions were going against us week in week out and cost us several points. I suppose it evens out eventually but we could and probably should have won this league.
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Gforce added 15:15 - Apr 26 We deserved to do the double over them,if it wasn't for the ridiculous decision by the ref to disallow our perfectly good goal,we would be up already.
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HUTCHITFC added 17:58 - Apr 27 I personally feel the staff and players have more important things to think about this week rather than the suggested comment that they make a plea to fans to stay off the pitch IF we get promoted. However what I'll say is that having supported Ipswich for years and years and now as a bloke in his mid 40s I can control my emotion alot better than say I could back in the year 2000 when we were good and getting promoted. What I witnessed at Barnsley on Tuesday night were a new bread of supporters late teens who have not witnessed any glory following Ipswich and I totally get that it's more this type of fan who can easily get carried away as they are generally the ones tanked up on 6 pints and with a load of mates. I've never been a knob at games and pushed stewards around like some did on Tuesday night but the ones I saw do that were 6 stone wet through and if they carry this behaviour on will one day end up on there backside with a out of place nose as they will upset the wrong person. It's easy for me to say at my age to stay in your seat but I get how easy it is to get lost in the moment. Hopefully everyone enjoys it. Remember the pitch invasion at elland rd when we effectively relegated them a few years ago.

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