Burnley look to end 12 year wait for Wednesday win

Last updated : 02 October 2012 By Tony Scholes

We have to go back almost twelve years to the last home win against them, to October 2000 and a 1-0 win courtesy of a Steve Davis goal that took us up to seventh place in the table in the first season following promotion.

Since then it has been a catalogue of failures with just two draws and four defeats. Those defeats include the potentially damaging 4-2 reverse in February 2009 which is referred to below and, of course, that farce of an afternoon when, already relegated, they beat us 7-2 with goalkeeping from Nik Michopoulos and Marlon Beresford that was almost at slapstick comedy level.

Charlie Austin enjoying his best ever start to a season

Tonight we entertain a Sheffield Wednesday team who are currently in a poor run of form, having suffered six successive defeats.

There's a recent precedent to playing them during their bad spells. On New Year's Eve 2005 they arrived at Burnley on a run of two draws and seven defeats from their previous nine games. They hadn't scored in the last seven, but ended that barren run with a Chris Eagles goal after just five minutes before going on to win 2-1.

In September 2007 we travelled to Hillsborough. It was the sixth game of their season and they hadn't picked up a solitary point from the first five of them. Then, we beat them easily before they got a win in the next game against Hull.

They'll arrive tonight lacking in confidence and that is something that we'd have had in plenty had we won on Saturday to make it back to back league wins for the first time since beating Brighton and Doncaster at Easter.

One real plus for us right now is the goalscoring form of Charlie Austin, the country's leading scorer just now. Hardly surprisingly, having netted again against Millwall on Saturday, he said: "My confidence is high at the moment and I go into games thinking I am going to score and go out there and deliver.

"But it's not just about me. It is the team. The lads are giving me good service and I am just in the right place at the right time. This is the best start I've had. I've been on a good run and hopefully it will continue on Tuesday night and on Saturday and then keep going."

Looking back to Saturday, he added: "We are disappointed that we didn't get the three points against Millwall, but we have another opportunity tonight. A win on Saturday would have been big for us but we're still not in a bad position.

"It's still tight so a win tonight would be massive. With a couple of wins you can be right up there. We should have won on Saturday and we need a win to show the fans that we are good at home.

"If we can get the fans behind us and driving us forward it is a massive boost and if they can turn up in their numbers again on Tuesday night it will be a massive help for us."

Jason Shackell is set for a return

Austin's must be the first name on Eddie Howe's team sheet right now and Howe is expected to be boosted tonight with the return of captain Jason Shackell who was forced to sit the game out on Saturday after pulling up in the warm up.

I don't think we can expect too many changes and it is just a matter of who Howe chooses to leave out should Shackell get the go ahead. Given that it was Michael Duff who would have lined up alongside him on Saturday that  looks the more likely option.

The Burnley team could be: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Ross Wallace, Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas, Martin Paterson, Charlie Austin. Subs from: Brian Jensen, David Edgar, Kevin Long, Joseph Mills, Marvin Bartley, Brian Stock, Cameron Stewart, Sam Vokes.

Sheffield Wednesday sprung a surprise last season when they sacked manager Gary Megson and replaced him with Dave Jones just days after they'd won the Sheffield derby against United.

That derby win had ended a run of four defeats and had been expected to earn Megson a reprieve. The change worked. They drew the next game at Rochdale but then won ten and drew two of their remaining games to go up automatically, nipping in to take their local rivals' place for promotion.

That form continued as this season got underway. Having beaten Oldham in the cup, they drew the opening league game at Derby and then recorded three successive wins, against Birmingham and Millwall in the league and Fulham in the cup.

That was their August. Their September hasn't been quite so good. They lost a cup tie at Southampton and lost all five league games in the month. In fairness, some of those defeats have come against the early front runners, but they also suffered a defeat at home to Bolton who are one of the more lowly placed clubs right now.

They've got injuries too. Reda Johnson and Chris Lines are ruled out again with all of Lewis Buxton, Kieran Lee and Rhys McCabe facing fitness tests.

Johnson's injury has been the biggest blow. Dave Jones said: "Reda has been in an oxygen tent to try and relieve the pain so he can run and play on it. We have had injuries all along the back, it's difficult to get a settled team at the moment."

Jermaine Johnson, their leading goalscorer with five league goals, filled in for Reda Johnson at full back on Saturday in their defeat against Wolves with Jones commenting that he played well and didn't let anyone down.

Their team tonight will be much reliant on whether the doubtful players pass their fitness tests but the team for the Wolves game on Saturday was: 1. Chris Kirkland, 11. Jermaine Johnson, 5. Martin Taylor, 4. Anthony Gardner, 14. Joe Mattock, 7. Michail Antonio, 24. Ross Barkley, 6. Jose Semedo, 17. Nejc Pecnik (18. Danny Mayor 64), 12. Chris O'Grady, 23. Jay Bothroyd (15. Lozano Rodri 76). Subs not used: 43. Stephen Bywater, 26. Daniel Jones, 32. Miguel Llera, 21. Paul Corry, 9. Gary Madine.

 

Last Time They Were Here

"Play offs are starting to look a pipe dream," that was the text I received from a friend of mine as I left Turf Moor in February 2009 at the end of our home game against Sheffield Wednesday.

Wednesday had given us a big kick in the teeth on the opening day of that season, beating us 4-1 at Hillsborough and in doing so they ended Remco van der Schaaf's Burnley career and all but did to that of Diego Penny.

Chris McCann scored our first

This was the day for some revenge. Our poor league run from Boxing Day which saw us lose five on the run, was over and we went into this game with two wins and three draws from the following five games.

This was the day we were going to make them pay, but it didn't quite work out like that. The omens, I suppose weren't good with Wednesday on this decent unbeaten run at Burnley and manager Brian Laws, a former Claret, never having lost at his old ground as a manager with Grimsby, Scunthorpe or Wednesday.

It all started well for us. We were the better side but the game changed when Rhys Williams lost the ball to Tommy Spurr who played in Marcus Tudgay. He'd scored twice at Hillsborough and made no mistake here as he fired the ball across Brian Jensen and into the far corner.

At that point in the game we didn't deserve to be behind, but by half time we were fortunate not to have been further behind.

Just eight minutes into the second half came the goal we needed. As goalkeeper Lee Grant hesitated, Chris McCann headed home a Robbie Blake free kick. Surely now we would go on and win it.

Some chance. We were level for just over a quarter of an hour and then Wednesday simply took over. Tudgay got his second and then Leon Clarke also scored twice. They'd scored three times in 13 minutes and we were facing another 4-1 defeat. It was the first time we'd conceded four goals at home in almost five years.

We did pull one back with five minutes remaining, substitute Chris Eagles curling in a free kick right into the corner, but it was never going to make a difference.

Play offs a pipe dream? I thought so too but I never expected us to win seven and draw three of the remaining eleven games.

The teams were;

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Rhys Williams (Kevin McDonald 73), Michael Duff, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott (Chris Eagles 64), Graham Alexander, Chris McCann, Robbie Blake, Steven Thompson (Jay Rodriguez 73), Martin Paterson. Subs not used: Diego Penny, Joey Gudjonsson.

Sheffield Wednesday: Lee Grant, Lewis Buxton, Richard Hinds, Mark Beevers, Tommy Spurr, Jermaine Johnson (Wade Small 87), Sean McAllister (James O'Connor 90), Darren Potter, Michael Gray (Francis Jeffers 90), Leon Clarke, Marcus Tudgay. Subs not used: Richard Wood, Frankie Simek.

 

Previous Games against Shefffield Wednesday

 

Last 20 Years
Season Comp Ven Res Att  Scorers
2000/01 Division 1 h 1-0 16,372 Davis
    a 0-2 20,184  
2001/02 Division 1 a 2-0 21,766 Taylor, Cook(pen)
    h 1-2 16,081 Taylor(pen)
2002/03 Division 1 a 3-1 17,004 Taylor, Little, I Moore
    h 2-7 17,435 Blake(2 1pen)
2005/06 Championship h 1-2 14,607 G O'Connor(pen)
    a 0-0 24,485  
2006/07 Championship a 1-1 22,425 J O'Connor
    h 1-1 12,745 Elliott
2007/08 Championship a 2-0 18,359 Blake, McCann
    h 1-1 15,326 Akinbiyi
2008/09 Championship a 1-4 23,793 Paterson
    h 2-4 12,449 McCann, Eagles

 

Click HERE to see all previous results against Sheffield Wednesday