On a night when the Reds were seeking to maintain their outside chance of gatecrashing the top two in League One, they saw two points go begging, while the top three of Plymouth Argyle, Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday all won.

The Oakwell outfit did clinch their play-off place with four matches to go, but lost ground on the top three.

Duff, who has had regular conversations with EFL head of referees Mike Jones in 2023 and also held recent discussions with new PGMOL chief refereeing officer Howard Webb about the standard of officiating at his side’s games this year, said: "It was frustrating. We had enough of the ball and got into good areas.

"Lincoln are a difficult team to play against, but changed the way they played and completely went back to front as they did not want to play into a press.

"I thought we needed a stronger referee. I think they made it pretty apparent from the first five minutes that they were happy for a 0-0 and then try and pinch one on the counter-attack as they are very good at it.

"But when there's people going down left, right and centre with head injuries and goalkeepers pretending to be injured, I've got no issue with them doing that - just add the right amount of time on.

"But with the amount of time added on, he could have added another 20 minutes and we would not have scored. From our point of view, it was the final ball and quality of not holding the ball up and we gave it away cheaply at times.

"I am not blaming the referee, we did not show enough quality in key areas."

Despite Lincoln's perceived time-wasting tactics, Duff said he had no issue with that and understood their mentality.

He added: "We are not a bad team. With professional footballers, I have said it all the time, they are not just going to go 'well, you are near the top, you need to win, go and roll up.'

"Because you are essentially taking money away from their pockets. You play against professional footballers in most things and they want to win against a five-year-old or 85-year-old. Ultimately when you strip it back, they are probably on an 'x' amount of bonus, let's say a £200 bonus.

"If you walked onto the street and took 200 quid out of someone’s pocket, then I am sure he'd want to have a fight with you. There's no real difference with footballers, there's professional pride and playing for contracts and they are a young team."

Questioned on dissenters now casting doubts over their prospects of breaking into the top-two, he continued: "They are same people who wrote us off when we lost at the start of the season to Lincoln. This team is no good, we have sold too many players, it's rubbish and this and that.

"I don't listen to it, but focus on the team and positives from the performances and try and improve the weaknesses. We've move onto the next one and see where it takes us."

"Draws aren't any good to us at the minute and you could see that in the last five or 10 minutes when we were trying to win the game. But we will take the positives that we can."

Barnsley host Oxford on Saturday.

Why Michael Duff was unhappy with another referee in Barnsley FC's draw with Lincoln City - and his defiant message to any doubters