Sam Grace heaps praise on Wycombe’s in-demand striker Richard Kone

Wycombe’s interim manager Sam Grace praised the performance of striker Richard Kone following his brace against Barnsley.

The Ivorian, who is a transfer target for Luton, scored a second-half penalty and a superb stoppage-time header as the Chairboys came from 1-0 down to beat the Tykes 2-1 at Adams Park.

Jonathan Russell gave Barnsley the lead but they struggled to find a second.

This, coupled with Marc Roberts’ straight red card after Kone had equalised gave Darrell Clarke’s team a mountain to climb as they lost for the third league game in a row.

For Wycombe, they remain second on 58 points – five points off their total from last season.

Grace, who has now picked up seven points from his three games in charge, said: “Once we got used to their system in the first 10 minutes, I thought the boys deserved the win.

“We made it hard for them with the hard press but we also had that threat from behind.

“Whether that was Dan Udoh with the ball running in from behind or Richard Kone doing the same along with Fred (Onyedinma).

“Even when we made those changes, it didn’t change anything.

“We were disappointed with our final balls on the weekend but we were a lot better tonight and with Richard, we see him doing that week in, week out.

“At the time of the penalty and the sending-off, we had real momentum as we kept on going.

“But I think we were quietly confident we were going to get that second goal.”

Richard Kone

On Kone, who has now scored 19 goals in all competitions this season, Grace added: “He was fresh.

“We know that the performance against Northampton wasn’t what we wanted.

“But if Richard plays the full 90 on Saturday, he’s not getting the winner tonight.

“I said it last week and I’ll say it again, Richard wants to get promoted with Wycombe.

“I don’t think anyone can have any doubts about his commitment as he is all in.”

For Clarke, he wants his Barnsley side to find their “winning mentality”.

The Tykes dropped to ninth, two points off the play-offs, and Clarke said: “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves as we need to get a lot better and that starts on Saturday.

“We need to get back into that winning mentality and be prepared for the weekend.

“In the first half, we were dealing with the long ball over the top that would bounce in between my keeper and centre-backs and we spoke about that at half-time.

“But we didn’t defend it well enough.

“We lost too many transitions so I’m very disappointed because after we got the first, we should have pushed on and got the second and third but we never really got going after going a goal up.”

READ MORE: Richard Kone’s double earns Wycombe victory against 10-man Barnsley