DUFF LOOKS AHEAD TO ACCRINGTON

Michael Duff faced the local media once again this week, to preview Saturday's fixture against Accrington Stanley.

INJURIES

Duff started the conference by confirming the long-term injuries of Josh Benson and Robbie Cundy. Both Englishmen can expect a few weeks out of action. Cundy “has a little tear in his knee”. With Benson looking at 4-6 weeks out.

Duff sympathised with Benson, who “hasn’t been playing in his strongest position.” and has had a stop-start career so far with the Tykes.

Duff confirmed that recently signed Max Watters probably won’t be available to start on the weekend, as he continues to build up his fitness. Watters will be available for the bench, with Duff yet to discuss with his sports-science team on the possibility of starting him.

Later in the press conference, Duff was asked about Luke Thomas.

“He’s out on the grass now, he’s been handed over from the physios to the sport science. It’s now a case of getting him fit.”

“We’ll be looking at integrating him into training by the end of the month.”

BARRY COTTER SIGNS

Republic of Ireland’s Barry Cotter joined the Reds on Wednesday, after making a reported £20,000 move to South Yorkshire from Shamrock Rovers.

“He brings athleticism, he’s someone who the recruitment team have flagged up. I’ve not seen loads and loads of him, but the bits I have seen of him are athleticism, pace, he can go past people. We need to get him fit. Again, it’s the unfortunate case that their season’s finished, so he’s been in his off-season, so he will have to do some sort of pre-season with us to try and get him up to speed.”

“But you see with the three-and-a-half-year contract, the club thinks he’s got potential to go on.”

“We think he has loads of attributes that we can improve, and then hopefully impact the team.”

Duff was quoted to say that there was “a lot of interest in him, and we’re glad to have got him.”

JORDAN WILLIAMS TO PNE?

Jordan Williams was linked with a move to Preston North End, late last week. Duff reiterated that he expects “nobody to leave”. He confirmed that there were no bids made (yet) for Williams.

TRANSFERS

When asked how many more players he wants in, Duff said he wasn’t sure there’d be many more.

“We can go and sign loads of players, but we need players who are going to improve the XI. So, if there is something we find, we’ll take it to the board and see if we can do it. But they have to be the right ones.”

“We’re looking to strengthen everywhere, if you gave me a centre-half who I think will improve the starting XI, I’ll take him”.

“We’ve bodies in areas of the pitch now, and now it’s about whether we can improve what we’ve got. If we can’t (get anybody in), we’re doing okay at the minute, so we’ll just work with the group that we have got.”

Duff addressed Tom Edwards’ injury, and the termination of his loan. When asked whether he could see Tom return in the future, Duff said “that’s between Tom and the club. I’d like him, but he’s at a Championship club who’ve had a change of manager since he’s been here. So, he might see that as an opportunity to get back into the Stoke team. He was great for us, (he) did really well, (he was) great in the group, (he) brought good experience for a young player. And I thought he was good, and it is unfortunate, it’s the ruthless side of football. There was an opportunity to break the contract, just based on clauses, but Tom totally understood the finances. He’ll be out until the end of March, financially we’d have to keep paying him for a long time.”

POST CHARLTON FEELING

Last time out, Barnsley were unfortunate to come away from the Valley with nothing. Despite a 2-0 defeat, Duff was kind regarding his side.

"We showed 27 clips of opportunities, not just chances, (but) areas of the pitch that we got into, that ultimately, you need to score when you’re on top in that first part of the game. We had five corners in the first five minutes. We’ve hit the crossbar a couple of times, we had one off the line. Jack’s (Aitchison) shot, we were pretty convinced it was going in, and it hits Devante (Cole). And goals change games.”

“We went a month without scoring a goal, earlier in the season, and we weren’t really creating a lot of chances. That wasn’t the case on the weekend. Score it off, another game done, and try and react this weekend.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO ACCRINGTON

Just weeks after playing them on Boxing Day, we welcome Accrington Stanley to Oakwell on Saturday afternoon. Despite it being less than a month since our last fixture against them, the mood feels different.

"Exactly the same type of game (as before). (They) make it really different, they end up going man for man a lot, all over the pitch, which is always difficult to play against, so you’re looking at moments of quality. Again, I think we did enough to win that game, but we didn’t. We need to try and be more ruthless in certain areas of the pitch.”

“The squad that John (Coleman) puts together every year, one thing they are, are competitive. They can’t compete financially with a lot of the teams. He’s 1200 games into it. He’s forgot more than I’ll never know, probably.”

“You very rarely see an Accrington team roll over.”

Flashback