If you wanted to look for a player in the Swansea squad for whom the play offs meant as much as they do the fans then you would look no further than Connor Roberts who has just passed his 150th appearance for the club.
Roberts will pass Joe Allen’s appearance record of an academy player during the play off campaign which he says reminds him just how he has come full circle in a ten year period.
Back in the play off campaign of 2011 he says he was tweeting messages of support for the squad ahead of the games against Nottingham Forest and Reading and this time round he is the one on the end of the well wishes of the fans as the Swans prepare to take on Barnsley over two legs next week.
Roberts is a clear contender for the player of the year award thanks to his excellent performances for the Swans and straight after the play off campaign his attentions will turn to international football and another summer for Wales as Euro 2020 finally happens twelve months later than initially planned.
So there is no time to rest for Roberts not that he is looking for a reason to stop “Ever since I was a young boy I played a lot of sports. My fitness comes from that, I don’t drink alcohol either. A lot of people don’t understand that, but it’s never interested me. Why would I want to have a drink when I’ve never tried it before?” he explained to the official Swans website
“I’ll play whenever I get asked, even I am a bit tired. If we played one day, and for whatever reason I’m asked to play the next day, then I would. It’s no secret I enjoy playing games a lot more than I do training.
“A little while ago, I went through my Twitter account and I was messaging Scott Sinclair and a few of the squad before the play-off final in 2011. I said good luck and told them we were all behind them.
“Now I’m in a similar position now and people are tweeting me or wishing me luck when they see me out and about with my missus.
“I found a photo of myself the other day when I was a mascot at the Vetch. It almost brought a tear to my eye because I thought ‘that boy there is achieving his dream’.
“The more memories I can create in a Swansea shirt the better.”