Neill Collins impressed by Barnsley’s display at Cambridge

Posted Wednesday, October 04, 2023 by PA

Neill Collins was delighted with Barnsley’s all-round display as they won 4-0 at Cambridge.

Collins’ side have dropped only two points from their five away trips in League One, in contrast to four defeats at Oakwell.

Nicky Cadden opened the scoring early on before Mael de Gevigney unwittingly scored the first goal of his professional career when a defensive header rebounded off the Frenchman and beyond Will Mannion.

Max Watters put the result beyond doubt, moments after Cambridge were denied a penalty which might have shifted the momentum, and Jon Russell’s fine strike sealed an emphatic Barnsley win late on.

“I think particularly the first-half performance was as good as we’ve been, in all aspects of the game,” Collins said.

“We created some really good opportunities, got a couple of goals and had to defend as well. Cambridge have got some really good physical attributes to put us under pressure on set-pieces.

“All in all, a good team performance where we showed a willingness to defend our box but also a lot of quality in possession.

“I’m sure every changing room up and down the country say a lot of the same things. Ultimately one team’s maybe going to come out on top trying to do similar things, but I thought the players implemented it with a bit of quality as well. It was a good, positive attitude against the ball, but then quality on the ball as well.

“Our form at home will improve but I think it says a lot about the mentality of the team to come somewhere like this and play like that.”

Cambridge boss Mark Bonner was at a loss to explain how his team had come out on the wrong end of such a comprehensive scoreline.

“I actually can’t believe the score was 4-0 tonight,” said Bonner.

“All goals are preventable goals really and we’ve had enough chances to score.

“We’ve lost some games by big scorelines a few times but that was a fairly even game where both teams have created similar number of chances. We’ve created lots of them and to come out not scoring, and then conceding some of the ones we’ve had is actually quite tough to take.

“They’re a really good side and they showed their quality in the attacking parts of the pitch, the wide players crossing delivery, it’s just top, top quality and we couldn’t find those moments ourselves.

“In many respects we’ve got ourselves to blame for not being at the intensity we needed at the start, not taking the moments that we got, and giving away a couple of poor goals that have made the game impossible for us to turn around.”