Wednesday fighting against the drop

If we thought we had it bad recently with five games without a goal, Wednesday's run was worse. When they won 2-1 at the Turf on New Year's Eve they hadn't scored in their previous seven games.

Paul Sturrock was another manager busy during the transfer window with players leaving and new players signed. Players such as Lee Peacock, Maurice Ross and Graeme Lee were amongst a number of players shipped out, whilst four new players came in as well as Peter Gilbert making his loan move from Leicester a permanent move.

Striker Deon Burton was signed from neighbours Rotherham United and Marcus Tudgay joined them from Derby. Two young Southampton players arrived on loan, they were striker Leon Best and French midfielder Yoann Folly.

The new players didn't bring much in the way of a change of fortune but that can't be said for the latest acquisitions who both signed three weeks ago today. They are goalkeeper Scott Carson from Liverpool and Manchester City's Danish defender Mikkel Bischoff. It is since he arrival of these two that the results have taken an upturn with a draw against QPR followed by wins against play off candidates Preston and Wolves, the second of those wins coming away from home last Saturday.

Neither of us could find a win and now we are both going into the game tomorrow on the back of some much better results.

Click HERE to see all Sheffield Wednesday's results this season.

Peter Gilbert is definitely out of the reckoning for Wednesday. He was substituted early in the game last week at Wolves with a torn cartilage and that as brought his season to an end. That should see former Blackpool and Gillingham full back John Hills take his place. The last time Hills played against us with Laws as referee it led to the incident at half time that saw Stan Ternent sent to the stands, Hills had somehow stayed on the pitch after two shocking challenges on Robbie Blake and Glen Little.

The good news for the Owls is that both Jon-Paul McGovern and Steve Adams return to the squad after injury, both came through a mid-week friendly behind closed doors.

Wednesday's expected line up is: Scott Carson, Frankie Simek, Mikkel Bischoff, Graham Coughlan, John Hills, Chris Brunt, Yoann Folly, Glenn Whelan, Burton O'Brien, Deon Burton, Marcus Tudgay. Subs: Leon Best, Jon-Paul McGovern, Steve Adams, Lee Bullen, Steven MacLean.

Click HERE to see the full Sheffield Wednesday squad.

Steve Cotterill has said that he wants to finish the season strongly, but has also said that he wants to experiment somewhat in the last six games with a view to next season, so we can only wait and see what happens.

It looks certain that Kyle Lafferty will play some part in the game, he played in the reserves on Wednesday and was pulled off at half time so I suspect he'll get a run out tomorrow. The Bournemouth three were all in the reserves too but none of them impressed and it is unlikely any of them forced their way into the team.

One player certain to start is Chris McCann. The manager has said that he wants to see how he will react to playing a few games and so he's likely to be in the midfield for the rest of the season. With Micah Hyde not fully fit, and with John McGreal, at best, only ready for the bench, it would be no surprise to see us start with the eleven who started on Tuesday against Southampton.

That would give us the following line up: Brian Jensen, Phil Bardsley, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, Jon Harley, Alan Mahon, James O'Connor, Chris McCann, Graham Branch, Michael Ricketts, Andy Gray. Subs from: Micah Hyde, Garreth O'Connor, John Spicer, Wade Elliott, Kyle Lafferty, Danny Karbassiyoon, John McGreal.

It's three and a half years since we were last at Hillsborough when three excellent goals from Gareth Taylor, Glen Little and Ian Moore gave us a 3-1 win, the game coming during our best run of form throughout the 2002/03 season.

There's more on that, and other recent games in We went back to Hillsborough after eighteen years in our look back section.

The teams for our last meeting in Sheffield were,

Sheffield Wednesday: Kevin Pressman, Derek Geary, Craig Armstrong, Danny Maddix, Leigh Bromby, Leon Knight, Alan Quinn, Paul McLaren, Gerald Sibon, Shefki Kuqi, Lloyd Owusu (Simon Donnelly 58). Subs not used: Chris Stringer, Steven Haslam, Ashley Westwood, Trond-Egil Soltvedt.

Burnley: Marlon Beresford, Dean West, Ian Cox, Arthur Gnohere, Graham Branch, Glen Little, Steve Davis, Paul Cook (Gordon Armstrong 73), Robbie Blake (Mark McGregor 84), Gareth Taylor, Ian Moore (Dimitri Papadopoulos 69). Subs not used: Brad Maylett, Andy Payton.

Previous 20 Seasons
Season	Div	Ven	Result	Att	Scorers
2000/01	1	h	1-0	16,372	Davis
.	.	a	0-2	20,184	.
2001/02	1	a	2-0	21,766	Taylor Cook(pen)
	.	h	1-2	16,081	Taylor(pen)
2002/03	1	a	3-1	17,004	Taylor Little I Moore
.	.	h	2-7	17,435	Blake(2 1pen)
2005/06	C	h	1-2	14,607	G O'Connor(pen)

Click HERE to see all our previous results against Sheffield Wednesday.