Wilder takes the positives from Middlesbrough's defeat to Barnsley as he praises much-changed side

Chris Wilder could not fault his Middlesbrough side’s effort, despite exiting the Carabao Cup following a 1-0 defeat to Barnsley at the Riverside.

A much-changed Boro side, which included no fewer than seven players from the under-21 squad, largely dominated the game against the League One outfit but just couldn’t find their momentum before a sucker punch in the dying minutes.

Josh Benson reacted quickest as Liam Roberts spilt his effort to turn the rebound home in stoppage time and set up a second round tie with Leeds United for his side. For Boro, while it meant a late defeat and exit from the cup, the Boro boss was taking more positives than negatives from the game.

Middlesbrough ratings as a much-changed side crash out of the Carabao Cup to Barnsley

He said: “I was delighted with the players. The senior players were excellent in their attitude towards it. Sometimes you look at it from a mentality point of view and your senior players set the tone of that.

“It was a mixed team in terms of senior players and youngsters, and a lot of young boys off the bench too. So you look at what the senior boys’ performances and attitudes towards the game is like, and I thought they were absolutely first class.

“Dael Fry, Tommy Smith, Boles, Paddy, Robbo, Dunc all superb in terms of a really good attitude towards it. And then the second bit is the integration of the young players into senior football. That’s always interesting and I thought they were outstanding.

“I thought they grew into the game and second half they were superb. On top of that, you’re balancing it in terms of conditioning of the players and getting minutes into some. You’re looking for Paddy to do 60 minutes, Chuba and Marcus to do half an hour because we’re in