Barnsley v Fulham: Aggression and bravery order of day for Tykes

The Barnsley loanee today faces the club where he spent a fraught loan spell in the first half of the season before returning early to parent club Watford – and heading back out to the Reds.

He is likely to require no extra team-talk ahead of taking the field against a team whose head coach openly questioned his work rate in the media last autumn either.

All told, Quina was restricted to just four appearances in all competitions under Silva in an unhappy period at Craven Cottage.

Oakwell has proved a sanctuary in comparison with the attacker having already provided two stellar goalscoring contributions against Stoke and QPR.

On earlier criticism of Quina, Asbaghi said: “I have not seen any of those tendencies since I have arrived.

“He is a really hard-working player and he works hard in minute five and minute 90 and he has energy to do what he does in offense.

“I have not had a chance to see any situation where I am not happy with him in his defensive efforts.

“I cannot talk about what he has done before. But for me, he is a really complete kind of football player who has come here in a humble way and worked really hard for the team and has combined that with becoming even more threatening with our offense.”

After the aggressiveness from the off in the previous home game with Middlesbrough, Barnsley were rather more tentative against visiting Stoke in midweek – and at Derby last weekend.

Today, they are highly likely to need to replicate the assertiveness of their magnificent opening half against Boro – and a bit more besides – to have any chance of unsettling an outstanding Fulham side destined for a Premier League return.

Asbaghi added: “We talk about the things we need to do better and if we do things good, we can disturb the best ones in this league and that is the kind of performance we need on Saturday and we need to get the confidence up.

“We need to be aggressive and brave in our defensive positions as well and as a coach, we have to get all the players on the right terms and understanding what to do. Against Fulham, everybody must know exactly what to do in defence and offence and helping each other do it.”