Whatever happens in the play-offs, Barnsley have had a monumental 2020/21 season challenging the high-spending big boys of the Championship.

From battling relegation last season to being in the top six this time around, there has been a monumental turnaround under Valerien Ismael and for that he must be applauded.

It is the first time that the Tykes have been in the top six of the second tier of English football since the 1999-2000 season, where they finished fourth and lost out in the play-offs to Ipswich Town in the final at Wembley.

Their current squad is mainly full of English talent, however there's players hailing from all across the planet, including the USA, Kenya, Finland and of course Austria where Gerhard Struber liked to shop before his departure.

There's been lots of talented Englishmen to play for the Tykes down the years, and here is who we think are the 10 best to ply their trade in the last 20 years for the club - disagree? Let us know!

It would be wrong for a Barnsley list to not include the player who had the most longevity and was consistent throughout his time at Oakwell.

Hassell arrived in 2004 from Mansfield when the Tykes were in League One and within a few seasons he was a regular at Championship level, and in the 2008-09 campaign he won the Player of the Year award for the club.

Playing time dwindled as Hassell got into his 30's but he was still a reliable servant when used, and after a brief spell in India he returned to Oakwell as the club's Academy Manager after retiring from his playing career.

Despite playing just 24 league games for Barnsley at the start of his career, it's hard not to include Stones in this list as he showed just how classy an operator he was at the age of just 18.

Playing in a right-back position that you'll rarely see him used in anymore, Stones played in 22 out of a possible 29 league games in the 2012-13 season in the Championship before Premier League side Everton swooped for his signature.

That was a testament to the development Barnsley had done with him in such a short amount of time and of course we know what Stones has gone on to do since his exit from the Yorkshire club.

Morgan is more synonymous for his time at Sheffield United, but the only other club he played for in his career was his home-town of Barnsley and he's been the same hard-nosed defender since he was a teenager.

He played 11 times in the Premier League for the Tykes but it was following their relegation to the First Division in 1998 where he became a regular fixtures, for the next four-and-a-half seasons.

His talent was that evident that he was linked to Premier League side Newcastle United in the year 2000 but that didn't materialise into anything - so he remained at Oakwell until 2003 when he swapped the red shirt of Barnsley for the stripes of the Blades and he was a big miss for the next couple of years.

In his best years, Hammill was a mercurial talent who tricked his way past many Championship full-backs on his day.

His natural ability shone through and in some games he was the difference between the Tykes picking up a point and going home with all three, and a first half to the 2010-11 campaign which saw Hammill score eight times earned him a £500,000 move to Premier League side Wolves.

That transfer and his subsequent moves didn't really work out for him and in 2015, Hammill ended up back at Oakwell on a free transfer to the delight of fans, and his first season back ended in promotion to the Championship and a wonder-strike in the play-off final.

He didn't quite hit the prolific heights of his first Barnsley stint in the end but for his very good days Hammill is a worthy inclusion.

If this was a list of players and their peak abilities, Trippier would be far and away the number one on this list.

He's gone onto big things since his season-long loan at Barnsley in 2010-11 campaign, including scoring for England at the World Cup and being a part of a Tottenham team that finished runners-up in the Champions League.

Trippier's Oakwell stint may have been the making of him - he made 42 appearances between his one-month loan spell earlier in 2010 and then for the following full season, scoring twice and generally putting in great performances.

That led to him going to Burnley the following season from Manchester City and the rest as they say is history.

Mawson spent just one full season at Barnsley but the club made one heck of a profit on him after he helped guide the Tykes back into the Championship.

The centre-back arrived at Oakwell from Brentford in the summer of 2015, having excelled in League Two the season prior for Wycombe on loan.

Stepping up another level was absolutely no issue for the 21-year-old, who played 45 times in the league and scored six goals on the way to a play-off final success.

After just four games in the Championship a few months down the line and two goals scored, Premier League side Swansea swooped in for around £5 million, and even though it would have been hard to lose a talented defender the club were able to forge an excellent deal.

Barnsley brought Winnall in from Scunthorpe in 2014 after a prolific campaign in League Two hoping that he would be the man to fire the club back to the Championship - and boy did he do just that.

It didn't quite happen immediately as they finished in 11th place in Winnall's debut campaign at Oakwell as he scored nine goals, but the striker exploded into like in 2015/16, netting 21 times in 43 outings in a season that culminated in play-off success at Wembley against Millwall.

And when you start your first ever season in the Championship off with 11 goals in 22 games, other teams are going to take notice and noisy neighbours Sheffield Wednesday swooped for just £500,000, with Winnall out of contract the following summer.

His career hasn't quite panned out since then - he may now think what may have been if he stayed at Oakwell.

Mowatt struggled to make an impact when he arrived in the middle of the 2016-17 campaign from Leeds United, but he's more than made up for it in the years that followed.

A loan spell to Oxford United was seemingly the catalyst to Mowatt finding his feet at Oakwell though, as after returning from that stint he's been a regular at Barnsley and is now captain.

Mowatt was named in the League One Team of the Year two seasons ago after scoring eight goals and he also netted that tally this season in the Championship as the Tykes reached the play-offs - he's been  a real driving force from the engine room and it's doubtful that they'd be in the top six without him.

Mowatt could have gone above Howard here but the latter just pips him due to that iconic FA Cup run in 2008 in which Howard played a pivotal part in.

Howard joined from Swindon Town in 2005 and after Barnsley were promoted a year later, the midfielder stepped up to the second tier pretty easily, scoring eight goals in his debut season at the level.

He hit even greater heights in the following campaign, netting 13 times in the Championship and of course he hit that iconic winning goal at Anfield against Liverpool in round five of the FA Cup and he helped them get all the way to the semi-finals.

Named in the Championship Team of the Season, Howard was valued at £10 million that summer by chairman Patrick Cryne, but he ended up making a loan move to Sheffield United months later and that's where it all started to go a bit downhill.

But for his contributions to the Tykes he has to be one of the top players for the club in the 21st century.

Barnsley have had plenty of goalscorers in their team over the years, but none of them have been quite as consistent as Dyer.

There's many strikers who you could class over the years as being not quite Premier League standard, but in the league below a class above and Dyer fit into that category.

He joined Barnsley in 1998 but it took him until the 2000/01 season for him to break the double-figure goals mark for a campaign, netting 15 times in 38 games.

Dyer scored 14 and 17 goals in the next two consecutive seasons - the latter being in the third tier - and that form convinced Watford to bring him back to Vicarage Road in 2003 on a free transfer.

There's probably more technically gifted players on the list than Dyer but from a goalscoring and impact standpoint there's not many English players that were better for Barnsley.