Neil Harris insists Cardiff City can barge their way into the top six of the Championship and make the promotion play-offs.
The Bluebirds manager is in upbeat mood after his side won 2-0 at Barnsley thanks to goals from Will Vaulks and Callum Paterson – a result which has narrowed the gap between themselves and sixth-placed Preston to just two points.
Cardiff are up to ninth in the table and are one of five clubs behind Preston, who are separated by just two points and Harris said: “All we can do is put ourselves in a position of trying to get stronger all the time.
“We’ve got nine games to go and we’re two points off sixth. It’s a nice position for us to be in, chasing, as the underdog a little bit.
“Can we catch teams above us? Yes.
“We’ve got the toughest fixture in the Championship next week playing Leeds United, but the second half today wasn’t just built off a team talk at half-time, it was the last 70 minutes against Brentford where we dominated and should have won the game.
“It’s built off probably the best week’s training we’ve had since I’ve been at the club. And we saw that today.
“It wasn’t a strong performance in the first half, but it was competitive. Is that a sign of us getting better? I hope so.
65th minute – Will Vaulks scores for Cardiff and celebrates with a backflip
66th minute – Callum Paterson scores and tries to copy him
#CardiffCity pic.twitter.com/e6O1oXPggR
— Second Tier Podcast (@TheSecondTier) March 8, 2020
“I’ve said to the boys, ‘what’s gone on in the previous 36 games before today, is absolutely irrelevant now’.
“It’s the last 10 games that are the most important to us, and we’re one game into those 10 games with three points out of three. It’s a good start.”
“In the first half it wasn’t a very good game. It was very scrappy. You can’t under-estimate the conditions. The pitch was very awkward to play on – we saw that in the warm-up – and with the wind in the first half it was really tough in the first half to get any momentum.
“I thought we had a couple of moments of quality in the first half and could have done better.
“Credit goes to Barnsley for standing strong against us but I didn’t feel they affected the game too much with the ball.
“We spoke at half time about being better on the first contacts and the second balls and having a little bit more quality and composure.
“I was very pleased with the second half because we had some real good moments of attacking football. There were two quality moments when we scored the goals.”
Vaulks (65) put the visitors ahead, firing into the net following a goalmouth scramble after Albert Adomah caused problems for the Barnsley defence.
Paterson added a second goal a minute later when he received a through ball from Sean Morrison, went one-on-one with Brad Collins and slipped the ball past the oncoming keeper.