Words by: Chris Morris (www.owls-mad.co.uk):
As we approach the Sheffield derby at Hillsborough on Sunday there is an understandable air of trepidation in the build up to the game. Whilst defeat won't condemn Sheffield Wednesday it would put a massive nail in the Owls Coca-Cola Championship coffin with just two games to follow it.
Since our defeat at Bramall Lane back in September there has been very little to get excited about in what has been an immensely disappointing season. The mid-table finish in 2008/09 gave good reason for encouragement going into this campaign.
The core of the squad that achieved a 12th place finish was maintained and with a couple of decent acquisitions made there was good hope that we would be able to build on that.
However after an indifferent start Brian Laws never looked like turning things around, especially in away games where we
continued to leak far too many goals and his departure in December was inevitable by that time. Alan Irvine arrived in January and a good honeymoon period under the new boss resulted in five wins from his first 7 games.
Since then however the momentum has been lost and Wednesday have started to struggle at the other end of the pitch. After our annual hammering at Reading - only 5-0 this time, the defending has improved and the team has only conceded 2 goals in a game once in the ten matches since then. However, in those ten matches Wednesday have drawn a blank 5 times and have not managed to score 3 goals in a game since September.
Marcus Tudgay has looked a shadow of the player that earned so much praise last season and although Luke Varney (9 goals each) has weighed in with some important goals there is little goal threat coming from anywhere else with the midfield barely managing to contribute double figures between them over the course of the season.
Back-to-back 1-0 defeats against Bristol City and Middlesbrough have been hard to take as Sheffield Wednesday can feel aggrieved not to have taken something from both games though in truth they have failed to make the most of getting into decent positions and have not done enough to test the goalkeepers in both games.
In terms of team news Wednesday will be hoping that Jermaine Johnson shows no ill effects from playing 90 minutes at the Riverside. The winger, whose pace represents the Owls best attacking threat at the moment, was due to be on the bench against 'Boro having only recently returned from injury but Leon Clarke developed a problem in the warm up and so he was forced into the starting line-up.
Clarke is now a doubt for the derby game due to this hamstring problem and midfielder Tommy Miller, who has been impressive but hasn't been fit enough to play in nearly enough games this season, is also set to miss out.
Owls Last Line-Up (10/04/2010 at Middlesbrough): Lee
Grant, Tommy Spurr, Darren Purse, Mark Beevers, Eddie Nolan, Darren Potter, James O'Connor, Jermaine Johnson, Tom Soares, Marcus Tudgay, Luke Varney. Substitutes: Richards Hinds, Francis Jeffers, Etinenne Esajas, Leon Clarke, Frankie Simek, Richard O'Donnell, Michael Gray.
Possible Owls Line-Up:
grant | |||
nolan | beevers | Purse (c) | spurr |
soares | potter | o'connor | johnson |
tudgay | varney | ||
Blades-Mad Prediction: Sheffield Wednesday 0-1 Sheffield United
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:: Statistics ::
For Head to Head statistics please click here.
Last 10 Games... Home & Away
Season | Date | Home | Score | Away | Competition |
2009/2010 | Fri 18 Sep | Sheff Utd | Sheff Wed | Championship | |
2008/2009 | Sat 07 Feb | Sheff. Utd. | Sheff. Wed. | Championship | |
Sun 19 Oct | Sheff. Wed. | Sheff. Utd. | Championship | ||
2007/2008 | Tue 08 Apr | Sheff. Utd. | Sheff. Wed. | Championship | |
Sat 19 Jan | Sheff. Wed. | Sheff. Utd. | Championship | ||
2005/2006 | Sat 18 Feb | Sheff. Wed. | Sheff. Utd. | Championship | |
Sat 03 Dec | Sheff. Utd. | Sheff. Wed. | Championship | ||
2002/2003 | Fri 17 Jan | Sheff. Utd. | Sheff. Wed. | League Division One | |
Sun 01 Sep | Sheff. Wed. | Sheff. Utd. | League Division One | ||
2001/2002 | Tue 29 Jan | Sheff. Utd. | Sheff. Wed. | League Division One | |
Sun 07 Oct | Sheff. Wed. | 0 - 0 | Sheff. Utd. | League Division One |
Head to Head Statistics... | Goals | |||||
Venue | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | For | Against |
Home | 62 | 27 | 22 | 13 | 98 | 70 |
Away | 61 | 18 | 16 | 27 | 73 | 92 |
Total | 122 | 44 | 38 | 41 | 169 | 162 |
* Statistics correct up to and including 19/09/2009