Rochdale boss John Coleman was utterly outraged by his side's display in the 4-3 Capital One Cup defeat by Barnsley.
Chris Dagnall spared team-mate Ben Alnwick's blushes by firing the Tykes to victory after extra-time at Spotland.
The Tykes led 2-1 heading into injury time, only for Alnwick to be sent off for aiming a headbutt at Ray Putterill. His moment of madness presented Jason Kennedy with an opportunity to level the tie from the spot, and he duly beat full-back Bobby Hassell in the Barnsley goal.
Dagnall's classy brace in the first half of extra-time put the visitors back in the driving seat, but a second Kennedy penalty - following a handball by Jim McNulty - brought Dale back into it.
However, the Tykes hung on, Hassell saving brilliantly from Kennedy and Ryan Edwards to hand former Rochdale boss Keith Hill a winning start to his second season as Barnsley manager.
"There are no positives to take from that," said Coleman. "You can't be positive when you've been beaten by 10 men without a goalkeeper. We're not going to crawl down a hole and moan about it, but we'll take no positives from it either. We'll be positive in the next game that we play, but we'll learn from how bad we were at times."
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