Daniel Farke admits Jordan Hugill’s hamstring injury capped a miserable 1-0 FA Cup fourth round exit at Barnsley.

Farke expects the big striker to be out for ‘the next few games’ after pulling up in the second half at Oakwell.

Teemu Pukki and Adam Idah were unavailable for cup duty and Farke now faces an anxious wait to assess his striker options for the Championship resumption against Middlesbrough next weekend. Hugill will be assessed fully by City's medical staff over the coming days.

“We desperately need a full week now to find some solutions,” said Farke. “We have done this throughout the season but it is a tricky situation. Not just injuries to key players but the Covid situation as well. There is hope Teemu and Adam will be available for Middlesbrough, and we have to wait for the assessment on Jordan. But it seems likely he misses the next games.

“We expect him to be out for a while. It looks like a hamstring injury and we already had to play with Teemu Pukki and Adam Idah. Then Tyrese Omotoye had to come in. He is a good lad but it is a difficult time to come into this type of game. That said a lot about our situation in the game, but good he has some minutes under his belt.”

Farke made five changes to his starting line up and that lack of cohesion was evident in a tame cup defeat.

“Not our best performance and congratulations to Barnsley. They deserved to win this game. We have to accept that,” he said. “It is always a difficult game here and also with the pitch as it is at this time of year. They more or less went with their best line up and we have obviously rested a few. We also gave some valuable game time to players who needed it. I don’t want to criticise my players too much.

“We were not as dominant as the league games but when you have four or five lads on the pitch not in their best rhythm it is difficult. We still had a possibility to win the game and we should defend the situation before the goal a lot better, we were not aggressive enough in our closing down.

“We are disappointed, we wanted to go to the next round but we had a few too many problems today. We have to accept the loss.”