Neill Collins says Blackpool caught Barnsley FC by surprise - and the poor standard of League One refereeing has been unexpected too

The Scot came away from his side's 10th league game of the season feeling his side had done a fairly decent job, yet licking his wounds after a fourth defeat of the campaign – all at home.

He does, though, want more help from referees after seeing his side were refused a couple of penalty appeals.

Since starting the season with a 7-0 win over Port Vale, Burton Albion are the only other side the Reds have beaten at Oakwell in League One.

They ought to have added the Tangerines to that, but Neil Critchley's side were able to cling on to Jordan Rhodes' first-half penalty and claim a 1-0 win. For all that Barnsley dominated possession, they did not have a shot on target.

"We had Portsmouth and Oxford come here and really come at us," said Collins. "I honestly thought Blackpool would do the same.

"When they’re not necessarily doing that it can be different questions for the players.

"Sometimes in these games you have to just be patient and in the second half more gaps open up.

"We definitely need to play with more purpose and look to go forward quicker. It's something we need to learn from this game, definitely."

Collins was more unhappy with referee Charlie Breakspear than his players.

He had no complaints about the "blatant" penalty Corey O'Keeffe conceded, but felt his side should have had a spot kick too.

"Not an awful lot went particularly wrong," he said. "We gave away a poor penalty, which was a mistake. I think that was Blackpool's first attack after we'd started the game well.

"As we've done at home we made life hard for ourselves then we spent the rest of the game trying to create opportunities.

"We created a few but I would like to have created more of course but we just fell short of getting the goal. I think we had two or three good opportunities.

"Blackpool are a good side. We definitely did need to play forward quicker at times but you've also got to recognise Blackpool gave us a lot of that possession and sat 11 men behind the ball so we had to show a little bit of patience.

"Not losing the first goal against a team that's going to do that is important.

"We need to learn when to be patient because you do need a level of patience but you also need to be ready to play forward at times and get the ball up the field a bit quicker."

This is Collins’ first season in English football since leaving Sheffield United for Tampa Bay Rowdies as a player in 2016. It is fair to say he has not been impressed with the officiating on his return.

"People told me when I came not to expect too much from the referees and I thought that was typical fans but I'm quickly realising one penalty last season wasn't an anomaly,” he said.

"We've had multiple opportunities to get a penalty this season, today a blatant handball (from a Devante Cole pull-back) and we didn't get it."We all need to be better but now and again you need something to fall for you."

But Collins was not too flustered that his team is slipping into a pattern of dropping points to the expected promotion contenders they hope to rival.

"We need to win games at home, that's important against a top-six team but I think people will agree we were a lot better than we have been in our previous games against that (level of) opposition," he admitted.

"We're going to have to win games. You're going to have to beat a lot of teams to get where we want to be, it doesn't matter who you beat.

"Today I think we competed pretty well and it could quite easily have been very different.

"I don't think Blackpool will go away thinking they've solved everything, equally we can't be too downbeat that we've lost 1-0 to a penalty, then huffed and puffed and not quite managed."

Collins handed a full league debut to 18-year-old midfielder Theo Chapman with Adam Phillips ill and fellow midfielder Josh Benson left out of the matchday squad.

Chapman was substituted at half-time.

"I think the game we expected would have been perfect for Theo, the game we got was very different," said Collins. "I thought there would be lots of spaces for him to run into, I thought Blackpool would be aggressive and leave the pitch more open.

"The change at half-time was more due to the tactical nature of the game."