Sudden impact of new coach Valerien Ismael sees Barnsley take ‘big step’ in right direction

When a new coach comes into a club players will always be trying to suss him out, so to do what his predecessor was unable to this season and lead the Reds not just to a victory but a hammering was important.

The victory owed much to a 26th-minute red card for Rob Dickie after which a Queens Park Rangers side which had started strongly collapsed into a pathetic heap, but the Reds had already started to turn the tide by then and impressed the new boss with their footballing intelligence and willingness to carry out his ideas.

“It was a big step in the right direction,” said Ismael afterwards.

“It was a perfect start. It’s always very good if you can start with a win. It gives you confidence for the work with the team, the players believe more in your words and quickly.”

It was actually far easier than the final scoreline looked, incredibly considering an opening 20 minutes when they struggled to get out of their own half.

“QPR played very well, very strong, aggressive, lots of crosses in the box, it was very tough work for us,” said Ismael.

It took 20 minutes for the hosts to find their passing range and the overhit balls to find their targets, releasing diagonal balls and getting Clark Oduor into the game, providing the width at left wing-back, whilst Conor Chaplin and Dominic Frieser stayed close to Cauley Woodrow but once they did, the man in the technical area loved it.

“It was what I want to see, a vertical game, to try to get quickly into the box,” he said.

“We had a lot of control of the game and we put pressure high all the time, this is what I want to see.

“For me it doesn’t matter if we win 3-0, 4-0, I want to see all the time the team keep going and they did this very well.”

Ismael was vocal in the technical area, constantly waving players into position and moving Frieser, who played for him at LASK last season, to the left.

Callum Styles was the standout performer and the first to pierce QPR with a probing pass, picking out Callum Brittain. Although the wing-back ran into trouble, it was the encouragement his side needed.

Styles’s threaded past made it through to Woodrow, who was brought down. The striker picked himself up and scored his third league goal of the season – all in the last four matches, all from the penalty spot.

From there it was a different game, the self-belief visibly draining out of QPR.

Seconds after former Doncaster Rovers loanee Seny Dieng saved from Woodrow he was picking the ball out of the net, Frieser laying the ball on for Chaplin to take a touch and score his first goal since June.

Styles’s half-time move to left wing-back – a tactical decision – only changed where he was brilliant from.

“Callum is a very good player,” said Ismael. “I already saw that on the videos I watched and in the first training session, you feel it. He’s very intelligent and understood quickly what I wanted to see.

“I told him on the first day good players can play everywhere. He showed me that. It makes the team more flexible.”

Alex Mowatt released Frieser on the right with a lovely outside-of-the-boot pass. When the Austrian played the ball in, Woodrow’s heavy touch let him down but Yoann Barbet putt the ball in for him for a feeble own goal which summed up the sorry state of the visitors.

By now Ismael was using the game to see what his players could do and they were more than happy to show him, half-time substitute Matty James replicating Mowatt’s pass and Chaplin forcing his shot past the covering defender, but not the goalkeeper.

Dieng saved low from Mowatt, and got his feet in the way of a Patrick Schmidt effort after Chaplin threaded the substitute through. Third substitute Elliot Simoes had a cross blocked with players lining up to score an 86th-minute fourth.

Schmidt headed a Simoes cross at Dieng when anything either side would have got him on the scoresheet and the Angolan international shot at the goalkeeper. Chaplin then ncurled wide and having waited an eternity for him, Schmidt fluffed his cross to Simoes.

Barnsley fans have been waiting a long time to get upset at not scoring a fourth.

It might never be this straight-forward again for Ismael but the Reds are on the march again.

Barnsley: Walton; Sollbauer, Helik, Andersen; Brittain, Styles, Mowatt, Oduor (James 46); Chaplin, Woodrow (Schmidt 67), Frieser (Simoes 75). Unused substitutes: Kane, Halme, Miller, Collins.

Queens Park Rangers: Dieng; Kakay, Barbet, Hamalainen, Dickie; Adomah (Kane 54), Ball, Chair (Masterson 31); Carroll, Dykes, Bonne (Willock 63). Unused substitutes: Cameron, Bettache, Kelman, Kelly.

Referee: A Davies (Hampshire).

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