Michael Duff on the Barnsley FC rebuild: 'Footballers are like kids – you think you've worked out one side of it and then they've forgotten what you coached with the ball'

The Reds' last two away games saw them draw at Ipswich Town and win at Sheffield Wednesday; Middlesbrough were knocked out of the League Cup and Leeds United given a run for their Premier League money.

On Tuesday, when the onus was on them to have more of the ball at home to Port Vale, Barnsley drew 1-1.

As the manager stresses, looking just at results is over-simplistic – he believes the midweek performance was worth three points – but it suggests Barnsley are currently better set up when the opposition is expected to call the tune.

The way footballers are, next week could be a different matter, says Duff, but it is perhaps not the worst news that Saturday takes them to the Abbey Stadium, where Cambridge United have League One's only 100 per cent home record.

"We've gone 3-4-3 and we've only had one home game since (against Port Vale), when I thought we'd done enough to win," he argues. "We have tweaked what we've done to suit the personnel.

"It's a work in progress and because the games have come thick and fast we've not had a lot of time on the training ground.

"It's not that we wasted pre-season because if we do need to flip to that formation, the players have got all the information about the 3-5-2 but you make little tweaks in trying to set up with the high press and away from home it has worked so far.

"Tuesday was a different game because I think we had 65 per cent of the ball so it's hard to press when you've got the ball. A lot of the work we have done has been around the other team having the ball because of the teams we've been playing.

"It's constantly evolving because footballers are like kids – you think you've worked out one side of it and then they've forgotten what you coached with the ball. Then you coach what to do with the ball and they've forgotten how to press!

"We'll look at Tuesday night and pick out the areas where we think in two days we can get little bits of information and work into them that we do need to improve."

Despite that, Duff insists the work he is putting in is all about the "bigger picture", not just the scramble for the next three points which could be helped at Cambridge by the return of Josh Benson and/or Nicky Cadden after injury.

"Most of my thinking is long-term, which might be foolish in the job I'm in," he accepts. "You have to win games to stay in the job but if you go from game to game you're not planning, you're not building.

"That's the million-dollar question, how do you find the balance? Performances have been better, results have been better – not brilliant, but improving – and there's a lot of information getting into the players.

"On Thursday we did a lot of classroom work because they can't do a lot on the grass but I'm a firm believer they can still learn. We are trying to build a learning culture where they ask questions, it's not just me pontificating at the front."

Judging a manager on the bigger picture is not so easy when you only see the 90 minutes of matchday so how does Duff think things are progressing?

"If you look at the three teams that got relegated, Peterborough are a point ahead of us, Derby are on the same points," he says. "We've sold half the team, five of the starters last season are no longer here.

"Peterborough have sold one player (Ephron Mason-Clark) and Derby have signed quite a lot of good players so it's been an okay start. Would we like more points? Absolutely.

"Hopefully supporters understand a lot of the quality got taken out of the team and we've replaced it. We've recouped quite a lot of money and not spent a penny (a slight exaggeration, although we do not know how much they paid Burnley for Adam Phillips).

"Hopefully the supporters can see the work being done and the players putting a shift in and if we fall down on quality, we fall down on quality.

"It's difficult to say what's on schedule because you want to get from A to B but it's never a straight line but in pre-season three times I had to stop the small-sided game because it looked like a load of mates having a kickaround. There was no edge to it, no shape.

"Now I enjoy watching training because there's an intensity to it, a desire and a competitiveness. That's just a small step which creates habits you then take onto the pitch.

"Has there been improvement? One hundred per cent. Is it where we want to get to? You're never happy.

"I'd imagine Pep Guardiola won't be happy, he's always looking for improvement. In football, everyone's striving for it but there's no such thing as the perfect game. We're just trying to improve.

"But on the bigger picture thinking it's been an okay start."

After the trauma of last season, okay is not bad at all.