Peterborough United manager believes his side have shown they belong at Championship level as they continue impressive run at Barnsley

Harrison Burrows leads the celebrations after Posh score a second goal at Barnsley. Photo: Joe Dent/theposh.com.

Victory at Barnsley today (April 18), coupled with Reading’s 4-4 draw at home to Swansea, has kept Posh in with an outside chance of survival.

Derby County were relegated today and Barnsley are four points adrift at the bottom, but not yet down.

Posh now trail Reading, the only team they can catch, by seven points, but can still be relegated at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday (April 23) if they do not better Reading’s result at Hull.

Peterborough United manager Grant McCann at Barnsley.

Despite this, the club are currently on a season-best four game unbeaten run and have now won back-to-back matches for only the second time this season.

McCann said: “The boys have put an unbelievable shift in over the last nine games. I said to them yesterday; over the last eight games we have picked up 10 points and we probably should have got 14.

“Over the course of the season, that would put you on 70 points with six to go; that’s how competitive we have been.

“By winning today, we’ve done all we can. I heard the players talking after about Reading equalising but we can’t affect anyone else.

“All we can do is focus on ourselves and if we somehow stay up then great, but if we don’t, we will have a clear plan, be really competitive in the transfer market and we’ll try and put a squad together to win the league.

“It was a good result today. I don’t think it was the best of games, it was a scrappy and tense affair, but I’m really pleased with the way we dug in, stayed strong and defended well and when we needed to be clinical, we were.

“We weren’t great on the ball, but it was really pleasing to get a clean sheet and three points. It’s a good finish from Jack, he’s in good form and it’s pleasing to see us score a set-play for the second goal, we’ve been doing quite a lot of work on that.

“We knew our subs would have a massive impact, which I thought all three did today. We’ve had a lot of games so it was important to keep the freshness, Joe Ward had to come off at half time with a dead leg and we moved Sammie in at wing-back. It didn’t quite work but we changed it quickly. We’re on a nice little run now, two wins in a row and unbeaten in four and we want to keep it going.”

Posh will be hoping to Joe Ward back for the visit of Forest on Saturday but may be without the services of Jorge Grant, with McCann confirming he did not travel to Oakwell today due to an injury.