What Sheffield Wednesday boss Garry Monk said about the future of Cameron Dawson after the goalkeeper's howler at Barnsley

Dawson, who has wrestled the Owls’ keeping spot from long-time number one Keiren Westwood this season, miscued his left-footed clearance into the feet of Reds hitman Cauley Woodrow, who finished into an empty net from 25 yards.

It is the second similar incident inside a few weeks after Dawson’s error handed QPR a late consolation in Wednesday’s 2-1 FA Cup win.

But speaking after the South Yorkshire derby, Monk chose to stand by his man, laughing off any notion he should be dropped.

He said: “Unfortunately at times goalkeepers will make mistakes and ultimately they often prove costly. He knows that.

“He’s a fantastic lad, he’s young, he’s gaining experience.

“You look at every other clearance that he did and he did it how he’d want to do it.

“Unfortunately that one wasn’t quite right and it led to a goal, we can’t afford that and you don’t want that, because we’d just given ourselves a foothold in the game and were a goal up and looking threatening at that point.”

Monk has suggested Dawson is his long-term number one at Hillsborough and tied the stopper down to a new four-year contract last month.

And he said that down days such as Barnsley are all part of the youngster’s development.

“He’s made a mistake, but that’s the life of a goalkeeper and he knows that,” he said. “You don’t have to tell players when they’ve made mistakes like that, anyone. They already know.

“He’s still young, he’s still learning his game and we’ll give him more experience.

“He’s a very good goalkeeper. He made a fantastic save just afterwards and I think that showed his response and his mentality. It shows that he has the capability of understanding of ‘yes, I’ve made a mistake, but I’ve got the rest of the game to concentrate’.

“He made a fantastic save and that’s the response we needed to see.”