For a side that finished in the top six, Barnsley received remarkably little coverage on Sky during the regular season and so, besides the two games against us, I've seen barely anything of them this season and I've not been very impressed by them in anything I've watched. I put this down to just not being able to see them on a good day, but, watching them last night, it was hard to imagine how they possibly managed to finish where they did. To be fair, I only lasted until just before half time before falling asleep and, reading the report of the game on the BBC website, it sounds like they played quite a bit better in the second half and were unlucky to lose.
In one of the games I saw on Sky earlier in the season, it was quite impressive how they kept their levels of intensity going through the whole game and, on that day at least, they were a lot better than us in that department, but, based on what I've seen of them, I am left scratching my head somewhat as to how they finished ten points in front of us (I know Surge has said they made very effective use of their substitutes all season long and that's not really something you could say about us) - sometimes the table can lie if we're talking about gaps of a point or two, but not ten, they were definitely a better team than us over the forty six games.
Agree with others about the Swansea goal, I was surprised when the commentators talked about Ayew being clearly onside because it didn't look that way to me.
This thread shows how people can see the same thing and come to entirely different conclusions, because I thought the first match was a pretty good one for a Play Off game, whereas the half I saw of the other one was a, very, boring slog.