WARNE WILL HAMMER IN A WARNING

PAUL WARNE admitted his Derby side were almost caught napping despite easing their way to a FA Cup fourth-round clash with Premier League West Ham.

The Rams saw off League One rivals Barnsley thanks to a James Collins penalty and goals from Tom Barkhuizen (above) and Jason Knight.

But boss Warne admitted they could have paid a high price for a slow start and cannot afford a repeat in their coming league clashes or against the Hammers.

He said: “For the first 15, 20 minutes, Barnsley were superior to us. I don’t think the scoreline flattered us, however it is a good warning sign.

“It’s always great to win and learn and what we’ve learnt in the dressing room was we were just a little bit complacent in our start.

“We can’t afford to give teams a leg up. If they were to score and go 1-0 up it’s hard to chase the game sometimes, so in that respect we’ve learnt from that.”

Collins put Derby ahead on the stroke of half-time when Matthew Wolfe handled.

Barkhuizen added the second with a powerful shot on the hour and Knight took advantage of a defensive error to add the third goal after being set up by Nathaniel Mendez-Laing.

Barnsley boss Michael Duff did not hold back in his criticism of the Tykes’ efforts, saying: “We lost every duel, every header, gave poor goals away, so it’s not a great combination which is why we got beat.

“Let’s not shy away from the fact that we weren’t good enough.

“One thing we can’t do is get outrun, they had more desire than us, they were hungrier than us and we’ve got to learn from it.”