Barnsley 2 Fulham 4: Paul Heckingbottom undaunted as Newcastle United advance on Oakwell

Manager Paul Heckingbottom is having none of it, however, stating: “It’s why we got promoted, to play in sell-out games like this.

“It will be fantastic with 6,000 Geordies singing and, hopefully, we will be outsinging them two to one.”

Striker Marley Watkins agreed and said of the visit of a Newcastle side determined to bounce straight back into the Premier League: “It is a big game but I watched them growing up, a big club like Newcastle, and now they are our opponents it’s amazing.

“We need to put things right and Tuesday is a massive opportunity for us to do that.”

Watkins scored his third goal of the season as he and fellow scorer Sam Winnall got the vote up front ahead of Tom Bradshaw and Adam Armstrong.

But Watkins admitted: “We need to be much better than we were against Fulham and stop conceding silly goals. Conceding so early after our second goal was disappointing, if we’d seen it through to half-time, we’d have been prepared and had a lead to hold on to.

“Instead, they got that freak goal for the third one. It was a weird game, but Fulham are a good team and probably deserved it in the end.”

Of the battle for the two strike berths, he continued: “There’s competition but me and Sam have always worked well together, last season we went on that run and let’s hope we can continue to do so this season. Our job is to score and work hard for the team, that’s what we’ll continue to do.

“When you score two at home you expect to win. We need to be more stubborn and more nasty and stop conceding goals. I’m not saying we’re too nice, but we can be aggressive and show that stubbornness not to concede.”

Heckingbottom’s problems began at the end of training on Friday when captain Conor Hourihane pulled up with a calf problem which is still being assessed.

They were compounded when his central midfield partner, Josh Scowen, was sent off for a straight red after Fulham had twice come back from behind and gone 4-2 ahead.

“Losing Conor was a big loss, he’s been quality for us this season and he’s a leader as well but we can’t expect to rely on the skip, we’ve got to all step up. It’s a learning curve for us but we’ll keep geting better,” claimed Watkins.

He had given the Reds an ideal start, being slipped down the channel by Scowen to make it 1-0 in the fourth minute.

It was a repeat performance as Winnall drove in off the post after Sam Morsy played him through immediately after the visitors had equalised in the 37th minute when Tom Cairney spread the ball for full-back Scott Malone to pull it back for Lucas Piazon, whose eight-yard shot had enough power to take it through the sliding challenge of Marc Roberts and into the far side of the net.

Fulham’s response to going behind again was instant and Sone Aluko took a clever back-heel from Stefan Johansen and hit home the equaliser.

They were not finished as straight after the interval Malone got the better of Ryan Kent and hit a fierce cross-shot which caught Adam Davies off-guard and the ball flew over his head into the roof of the net.

Chris Martin made the points safe, racing on to an expert cross from Malone to head home the fourth in the 65th minute.

Then Scowen, attempting to dribble out of his area and twice buffeted without a foul being awarded, overran the ball and lunged at Scott Parker, catching the Fulham captain on the shin and receiving a straight red.

His absence means plenty or planning ahead for Heckingbottom with teenager Jared Bird, who was pulled out of an Under-23 game to take his place on the bench, being in contention for a place tomorrow alongside Hourihane’s replacement, Morsy.

Andy Yiadom could also continue where he left off against Fulham after having had an uncomfortable ride at right-back.

Yiadom had not been helped by Heckingbottom’s admirable attacking ploy of not forcing Kent into a back-tracking role spectacularly back-firing.

It gave Malone all the time and space to create havoc down that flank as Fulham enjoyed their first win at Oakwell in eight visits.

“We were set up to hurt them in the way that we did but while we did not gift them goals because they are a good, slick side, when you watch it back our sensing of danger and in dealing with things, why we have kept clean sheets and why we have defended so well previously, was missing,” reflected Heckingbottom.

Barnsley: Davies, Yiadom, Roberts, MacDonald, Kpekawa; Kent, Morsy (Bree 80), Scowen, Hammill; Watkins (Bradshaw 71), Winnall (Armstrong 71). Unused substitutes: Townsend, Jackson, Bird, Lee.

Fulham: Button, Odoi, Sigurdsson, Ream, Malone; Parker; Piazon, Cairney (Kebano 84), Johansen (Tunnicliffe 70), Aluko; Martin (Smith 90). Unused substitutes: Bettinelli, Fredericks, Madl, Sessegnon.

Referee: K Stroud (Hampshire).