SHANE RITCHIE EXCLUSIVE A JUBILANT Andy Ritchie met with the press after last night's clash with Preston North End and could not hide his delight at progressing through to the next round of the Carling Cup. He said: "I thought a real hiding was on the cards in the first 25 minutes and we fully expected Preston to come flying out of the blocks like that. We had to work really, really hard and be really on top of our game just to stay with them. I think if it was not for some poor finishing we could have been three or four behind. "We had chances ourselves towards the end of the half but I am very, very pleased with our performance. We dug in, worked hard and we have to take a lot of encouragement from that. We should not have anyone to fear now because we more than matched Preston after half time. They are virtually a Premiership side and that showed with their quick and slick start. We had to work very hard just to stay on level terms. "Scott Flinders came into the side and I know he was disappointed when I opted to start the league campaign with Nick Colgan. He made some outstanding saves and it was disappointing to see him pick up an injury. Scott injured himself making a great save and it looks as though he has a muscle injury so we will have to wait and see. I also felt Nick did well when he came on and he had a real tricky shot to save for his first action. "Jacob Burns has done well for us so far this season but I felt he needed a rest because we have so many games in such a short space of time. We want to keep the lads fresh and I would have really liked to have taken one of the front two off late on but that was not to be. "Jacob scored two really good goals. They were both tap ins but we have been asking him to break forward more and get more shots away. Jacob has been doing that this season so it was nice to see him get some reward. "We thought about going for a different system altogether against Preston and worked on some things on the training field but it just did not feel right. I spoke with Rick Holden and some of the players before the game and we decided that playing our normal way would be best. We tucked Stephen McPhail in narrow so he could get on the ball more but we were caught down wide a little. We changed to 3-5-2 in the second half because Preston were still getting down the wings a little too much". KEEP UP TO DATE WITH THE BIGGEST NEWS FROM OAKWELL - TEXT CLUB BARNS ON TO 88442 AND MAKE SURE YOU KNOW FIRST OAKWELL EXECUTIVE SUITE PRICES 20052006 ©www.barnsleyfc.co.uk 2005 RNK
