Barnsley v Ipswich: David Flitcroft believes Paul Jewell played Barnsley a massive compliment in the way they lined up at Oakwell.

The Blues boss returned to his diamond midfield on Saturday after its mixed success last season.

Following Barnsley’s 5-0 win at Birmingham the previous weekend, Tykes assistant manager Flitcroft believed that fantastic victory was a major factor in Jewell’s thinking to go like-for-like against the confident Tykes.

Even when Luke Hyam (half-time) and Guirane N’Daw (53 minutes) were taken off, Jewell maintained his narrow midfield, which meant deploying Jack Ainsley in an unfamiliar role at the defensive base.

Flitcroft, who questioned the first-half performance of referee Trevor Kettle, said: “There are a lot of good clubs in this league. It is a massive respect to Barnsley that a big club like Ipswich have come here and set up a team to match us. They obviously put in a lot of consideration over what formation to use to stop us playing.

“It is a compliment to the team and a compliment to the staff. It feels like two points lost after the way we played in the second half.”

Barnsley midfielder Stephen Dawson scored his first goal for the Tykes in the 74th minute before testing Scott Loach from distance late on – though joked it was more like a back-pass with the Town keeper “making a meal of it”.

Dawson said: “My goal was coming. We were unlucky when Daggers (Chris Dagnall) hit the post.

“I don’t think we played well first half. I thought the free-kick which they scored from wasn’t a free-kick.

“But it gave them something to play for and they matched us.

“But in the second half we showed why a lot of teams are starting to fear us and we were unlucky not to get the result.

“I thought they just put 11 men behind the ball, just holding out for the point.”