Town’s recent recovery — they are unbeaten in three league games after a winless run of six matches in all competitions — has put them back on course for a play-off place.

With 51 points up for grabs, starting against lowly Barnsley at Oakwell today, they are ideally placed to mount a challenge for a top-six berth.

Experienced midfielder Jay Tabb, who has seen and done it all with previous clubs Brentford, Coventry and Reading, said: “You get little patches in football where you have a run of good or bad results.

“Just after the New Year we had a run of poor results — the two matches against Preston, QPR, Millwall — and we didn’t play as well as we know we can.

"The manager and TC just kind of hit it home to us, reminded us what we are good at and got us back to basics, working hard and making sure we went out and gave our all.”

Tabb came off the bench in Town’s home win over former club Reading and then he was recalled to the starting line-up for the away draw at Leeds and last week’s home defeat of Bolton.

He added: “I didn’t expect to play in the Leeds game because Hunty had played so well against Reading but obviously the manager wanted to freshen things up.

"That was a good game and it was good to get 90 minutes, even if I was struggling over the last 10 or 15. As a player it’s always nice to get 90 minutes in. Then came the Bolton game, another good result.

“Against Bolton me and Hunty, with Skusey sitting as well, it worked quite well. Me and Hunty just buzz around the place and try to get in players’ faces. It was a game where they had the better of the chances in the first half.

“Gerks made a great save from Neil Danns and if that had gone in, you never know, it could have been a different game. That’s what you have a squad for — the keeper makes a great save and you go in at half-time, sort things out and when we came out in the second half I thought we played really, really well.”

Photo: Action Images

KiwiTractor added 06:30 - Feb 8 Come on lads, would love to get 3 points against Barnsley - we seem to have struggled against them in recent seasons, would be great to put the struggling teams to the sword.
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MacMan added 09:20 - Feb 8 I will be up at some awful hour listening to it over the internet in christchurch New Zealand so a win would be most welcome. Think it's gonna be a hard game though, they have had a few decent results lately.
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