Darrell Clarke says Barnsley have ‘soft under-belly’ after Northampton draw

Barnsley head coach Darrell Clarke said his side have a “soft under-belly” after throwing away a two-goal lead in a 2-2 draw against Northampton.

Goals from Max Watters and Adam Phillips put the hosts in control before Northampton equalised with goals from Liam McCarron and Jack Baldwin.

Clarke said: ”It’s two points dropped, isn’t it? We get ourselves two-nil up at the start of the second half, we create chances to get a third to kill the game off.

“We don’t do that and there’s a bit of a soft under-belly about us that I don’t like.

“Some of the decision-making at times made us lose two goals so it was a frustrating afternoon.

“There’s a bit of softness in the pack and we have to beat that out of them and make sure our game management to see games through is strong.

“Make no bones about it, it’s two points massively dropped today.

“There’s a lot of changes from last season and we have to learn quickly and make sure I’m not talking about the same mistakes, same errors and same softness week in, week out.

“We will re-group and we’ll review it. We certainly have to defend better as a team, when you’re two-nil up at home against Northampton.”

Northampton boss Jon Brady felt his side could have taken all three points.

He said: “I came in at half time and I was a bit disappointed to be one-nil down, to be honest, with the amount of chances we had and the way we’d gone into their penalty area.

“We’ve had some clear-cut chances but our finishing in the first half, with the ability of players we’ve got in and around the box, wasn’t where we need it to be.

“The goal to concede was poor – we just switched off there – and then to come out after half time and concede straight from the kick-off nearly was awful from us.

“Then to show the character again to come back away from home, two-nil down at Barnsley – we’re pleased to get the point but disappointed, probably, that we didn’t get all three.

“Some that played today have only been with us a week to two weeks and they’re getting to know each other. We’ve got to get them connected better but there are huge plus signs and the way we played today, we’re starting to play the way I want us to play.

“Going forward in the first half especially, we carved them open a fair few times.”