Darrell Clarke said his much-changed Barnsley team got a ‘decent work-out’ in their 2-0 loss at Huddersfield Town which knocked them out of the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night.

After both sides changed the majority of their players from Saturday’s league match with the same result, the hosts netted twice in the second half.

Clarke told the Chronicle: “The boys worked really hard. We spent a lot of time without the ball but it was important to get minutes into the likes of Kelechi (Nwakali), (Stephen) Humphrys, Donovan Pines, Conor McCarthy. It was a decent work-out for us.”

When it was put to Clarke that his team were dominated by the hosts, and did not have a shot on target, he said: “Let’s be realistic. If you look at Huddersfield’s squad compared to our squad at the minute, we’ve got a lot of work to do. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t think that. They have five 30 plus year old players in their squad, they have just come down from the Championship. The gulf is quite big. We have players in our squad we’re hoping can turn into good players. But there’s a hell of a lot of work to do on the training pitch, on all areas.”

Barnsley cannot qualify for the knock-out stages, despite having one group game left. Clarke said: “I want to win every game as a manager but it (this competition) is not on my priority list. There is a lot of work to be done. You’re only going to see players in competitive games. For me it was the right thing to do to give people minutes against a strong Huddersfield team.”

Donovan Pines was sent off on 83 minutes, at 1-0, for bringing down Tom Iorpenda. He said: “I thought he was going wide of the goal and he (the referee) seemed to be quick to get the red card out. I will have a look at it but it is what it is.

“We tired after going down to ten men which was always going to make it difficult. They created a lot of chances from there.”

Clarke confirmed that Josh Benson came off after half an hour with a tight hamstring.