We are not just there to be also-rans

Barnsley may have been the unfancied side that reached the play offs to most people but for those that watch Championship football they were one of the sides that went about their business very quietly and clearly deserve their place in the top 6 of the division.

They always say that the league table does not lie after 46 games and whilst much of the focus of the watching media was around Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth (with a little bit of Brentford and Swansea) Barnsley moved themselves into a strong position in the league and now face the real chance of making it back to the Premier League next time around.

For fans of the Swans, Bournemouth and Brentford it is probably fair to say that we all fancied playing Barnsley but that is certainly a case of under estimating them.   From a Swans perspective we will look at having beaten them twice by a 2-0 margin either side of Christmas but much has flowed under the bridge since then and just three points separated us at the end of the season.

We know it will be tough and midfielder Alex Mowatt has confirmed that Barnsley are not just there to make up the numbers or be grateful that they have extended their season by at least a couple of weeks.

“I think it’s a massive achievement for all of us,” began Mowatt. “We’re in the play-offs and it’s a massive game and it’ll be great.

“We’ve put ourselves in an unbelievable position but we don’t want to stop here; we want to win the play-offs and we’ve just got to keep our performances high and see where that takes us.

“Of course, they’ll have expectations but we set our standards high. We don’t want to go there just to be in the play-offs – we want to go to the final and win it, so it’s not just about the games, we want to go all the way.”