Garner previews Barnsley trip

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Ben Garner is relishing a return to the dugout for the Addicks' Sky Bet League One fixture at Barnsley on Saturday.

The manager missed last weekend's draw at Fleetwood Town after testing positive for COVID-19.

"It's hard when you're not there and you can't influence things directly," admitted Garner. "The focus for me was just about how I could best help and what information I could get across. I was speaking regularly with Hayesy [Anthony Hayes] in the first half. I spoke with both him and Scott [Marshall] at half-time and gave my thoughts based on what I had seen and changes I wanted in terms of shape and personnel. 

"I'm really fortunate to have fantastic staff in place and a really good group of players. They responded fantastically well in the second half and gave a much better reflection of what we are as a group with the spirit and quality that we have."

The Addicks travel to Oakwell seeking a first away triumph of the campaign and the gaffer is eager to start converting draws into victories. 

"We could be six points better off in the table easily and the world's a very different place," Garner said. "We've just got to maintain the belief, stay positive and keep improving in the areas that we need to improve.

"Just turning those draws into wins is vital. The pleasing thing for me is that we are creating opportunities, especially away from home. We're creating clear-cut chances to score which is difficult to do away from home. We have to keep doing that and then we have to keep working hard in training to make sure we're taking those chances when they come along. 

"Every game is tough in League One, we say that week in, week out," he continued. "Barnsley, ironically, have been better away from home than they have been at home. Different teams are going through different things and some are be better away and some are better at home. 

"It's been very fine margins in terms of our away games, aside from Bolton where I would hold my hands up and say, 'we weren't as good, we deserved to lose that game'. Other than that we could have been taking wins from each of the games, including Sheffield Wednesday where we lost and we could easily have won that game. We're not a million miles away, we're proving that we're hard to beat and we want to be winning more games than we are."

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