Fulham 2 Barnsley 1: Takeover will not change Heckingbottom's plans in January

The buy-out by billionares Chien Lee and Paul Conway could not prevent another defeat for the Yorkshire side, their sixth in seven outings.

Goals by Floyd Ayite and Sheyi Ojo undid Barnsley, who had equalised through Tom Bradshaw, leaving Heckingbottom frustrated.

“We’ll bring in players in January, definitely. That was always the plan anyway, but nothing will change in terms of recruitment,” he said.

“We can only pay what we pay, so it will be very similar - we’re learning about the players and they’re learning about us.

“I’m just disappointed for the players, the effort, the organisation and the belief, I definitely thought we deserved something out of the game.

“We just lacked a little bit of quality when we were in good situations, which means we didn’t get enough efforts off from some really good positions.

“We’ve got lads in our group, some who have never played league football before, and we’ve thrown them into the Championship.”

Barnsley keeper Adam Davies was called into action on 10 minutes when he tipped a curled effort from Ojo over the bar.

Fulham shotstopper Marcus Bettinelli nearly gifted Barnsley the lead just after the half-hour mark when he misjudged a throwout from the area that went into the path of Harvey Barnes, but was able to save.

The deadlock was finally broken on 54 minutes when the impressive Ayite picked the ball up from 25 yards out to fire home low to the right of Davies.

Barnsley equalised on 69 minutes when a cross by Andy Yiadom found the head of Bradshaw to give the visitors their first goal in three games.

Fulham immediately made a change, with Neeskens Kebano replacing Ayite, and their lead was restored on 71 minutes when Ojo netted with a cross-cum-shot that fooled goalkeeper Davies.

Fulham manager Slavisa Jokanovic felt his side deserved the victory.

“We dominated the game, we had the passes. Ayite scored a quality goal, and we showed the reaction after we conceded the equaliser,” he said.

“We had to take care with him today, I took the decision to change him to be a little bit careful. It’s not the first time he’s been injured this season.

“It’s important for us to start a tough Christmas period with a victory, it’s a third win at home in a row.

“We showed many great things during the game and it’s important for us to start this period well.”