Preston North End 5 Barnsley 1: Youth may not be answer for Reds as they suffer an afternoon to forget at Deepdale

The Reds stuck to their guns this summer in terms of exclusively bringing young potential to the club and promoting their own homegrown talent, but it is a policy that is likely to see them in a relegation dogfight this season.

The manner of their capitulation at Deepdale, where they conceded four second-half goals left boss Daniel Stendel saying his side played like a youth team.

It had been a promising opening 45 minutes after Cameron McGeehan cancelled out Daniel Johnson's opener.

But the wheels came off after the break as Tom Barkhuizen, Johnson, Ben Pearson and Josh Harrop found the net as the high-flying hosts ran riot.

The Reds go into the international break in the bottom three, without a win in 10 games, and searching for an answer to their problems.

“You can see today over the 90 minutes that both in the small things and the big situations we played like a youth team,” said Stendel.

"Bad touches, fouls and mistakes. At half-time I thought it wasn't our best half but we were 1-1 with one chance for us and that was a good result, so maybe we could keep going for a bit longer and make more chances.

“But the second half was the worst I can remember since coming to Barnsley.”

Preston: Rudd, Browne, Bauer, Davies, Rafferty, Pearson, Gallagher, Barkhuizen (Potts 82), Johnson, Maguire (Stockley 74), Nugent (Harrop 73)

Unused subs: Hudson, Storey, Ledson, Bodin

Barnsley: Collins, J Williams (Green 82), Sibbick, Halme, B Williams, McGeehan, Mowatt, Brown (Wilks 55), Bahre (Styles 68), Chaplin, Woodrow

Unused subs: Walton, Andersen, Thomas, Pinillos

Attendance: 12,431

Referee: Gavin Ward