Jonny After Repeat Performance
Friday, 18th Apr 2014 06:00

Town loanee Jonny Williams is hoping to finish the current campaign exactly as he ended last season — as a play-off winner at Wembley.

Williams, 20, was in the Crystal Palace starting line-up against Watford before making way for veteran substitute Kevin Phillips, who converted an extra-time penalty to earn promotion to the Premier League for the Eagles.

Now he hopes to help Town secure a top six finish over the remaining four games of the regular season, his original loan stint having been extended to the end of the season. A further extension could also take in the play-offs should Mick McCarthy’s men qualify.

They are currently level on points with sixth-placed Reading and Brighton but with a goal difference of eight compared to their rivals’ 13 and 12 respectively. After Saturday’s trip to face Watford it’s a home date with Bournemouth, whose own play-off chances cannot be dismissed, on Easter Monday.

Williams said: “We’re all very excited and looking forward to the next two games. It’s been a good experience since I’ve been here. After the Blackburn game left us five points behind Reading we thought the dream was dead, more or less, but we knew that if we won the next two games, which we did, we would be right back in it.

“Now we are alongside Reading, which is a bit surreal, and with four games left we have a great chance of getting into the play-offs. It would be nice for me because it would be two years in a row.”

The Welsh international midfielder cast his mind back to Wembley last year and remembered: “It all went so quickly, the build-up and the game, but it was not bad for a first experience of the play-offs.

“It was a good game to win and it would be great if I could do it all over again. But we’ve got to get there first and it’s going to be four cup finals before we even get to the semi-final, if you see what I mean.”

Photo: Action Images

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