Delight for Alex Mowatt after he switches from Leeds United to Barnsley

After bursting onto the scene as a teenager, the Doncaster-born midfielder has found opportunities harder to come by under Garry Monk and has now elected to head for pastures new in a bid to kick-start his career.

On joining Barnsley and helping to fill the void left by the departure of Conor Hourihane, Mowatt said: “I’m really happy to be joining such a good club and I can’t wait to get going here. The gaffer showed me his plans for me and the plans he has for the future. It was good to see how he thinks and how he wants to play, he’s really sold his ambitions to me and made me desperate to come in and get going.

“I’ve seen quite a few Barnsley games this season and they are one of the surprise packages considering we have such a young team. I obviously watched the game the other night against Leeds, the atmosphere here and the performance was absolutely class.

“This is a young and exciting side playing equally exciting football. There is some real talent in the side and we sit just a few points off the play-offs, so who knows where we could go.

On bringing in Mowatt, head coach Paul Heckingbottom added: “This is a big signing for us and I’m really pleased to bring Alex into the group. He’s a very talented footballer and has got over 100 appearances under his belt already, at the age of just 21 so he is an excellent addition to the club.

We knew that his contract was approaching its end at Leeds and moved quickly to ensure we could bring him here on a permanent basis. He adds quality to an area that we had identified as needing it.”