Barnsley 0 Bournemouth 1: Wilson is undaunted after bitter late blow

Reds chief Danny Wilson, who has appointed former Bradford City boss Chris Hutchings as his new No 2, admitted: “It’s a very cruel game at times.

“When you find yourself in the position that we’re in, you just want to have a stroke of luck at times and it went against us.

“Thankfully, we’re still in the fight and still in the mix. If we can show the commitment and desire that we showed today for the rest of the games, we’ll have a chance.

“I thought the lads fought hard at times against a very good Bournemouth side.

“We negated their game-plan for long periods of the game and frustrated them while creating some chances ourselves.

“The chances that we had were clear-cut and against a good side you have to take them. It’s tough but it’s not something that fazes us. We’re going to have a real good go at it. All we can do is try to win every game we play in to give ourselves a chance.”

Barnsley were left to rue some spurned chances, most notably from Martin Woods and Marcus Pedersen.

Bournemouth had chances of their own with Andrew Surman missing the target from a good position and the woodwork coming to the home side’s rescue late on when it denied Matt Ritchie. Reds goalkeeper Luke Steele also made some good saves before Cook scored.

Barnsley made an encouraging start and striker Chris O’Grady threatened to score inside the opening minute when he directed a header on target, but the effort was easily saved by Lee Camp.

The visitors had a chance to score just before the half-hour mark when Surman was through on goal but he shot wide.

Barnsley had an even better opening when Woods’s shot failed to find the unguarded net after Camp’s punch.

At the end of the half, Lewis Grabban’s fierce, angled shot forced a good save from Steele.

Pedersen was in the thick of the action soon after the restart, having a header comfortably saved by Camp and then slicing a shot wide from inside the area.

Barnsley substitute Tomasz Cywka had a free-kick blocked by the defensive wall before Pedersen wasted another good opening, firing off-target from inside the area following O’Grady’s lay-off in a counter-attack.

Ritchie was unlucky to see the ball come back off the bar and Steele did well to keep out Ritchie’s close-range shot before Cook struck deep into stoppage time.

His initial effort following a corner was blocked but he followed up to turn home the rebound.

Barnsley: Steele, Hunt (Cywka 46), Ramage (Mvoto 83), Nyatanga, Kennedy, McLaughlin, Dawson, Woods (Mellis 78), Jennings, Pedersen, O’Grady. Unused substitutes: Proschwitz, Lawrence, Turner, McCourt.

Bournemouth: Camp, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Harte, Ritchie, O’Kane, Surman, Fraser, Kermorgant, Grabban. Unused substitutes: Allsop, Pugh, Arter, Pitman, Smith, Ward, Rantie.

Referee: S Mathieson (Cheshire).

Man of the match: Luke Steele.