Following Saturday’s morale boosting win over in-form Leicester City Sheffield Wednesday travel to West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday evening in search of another three points. Owls manager Alan Irvine recently set the Owls a target of six wins to try and ensure Championship safety and so a with handful more to pick up the Owls will be looking to pull off a shock result against the promotion chasing side from the black country.
Wednesday travel with no new injury or suspension concerns to worry them but Alan Irvine has a decision to make over who to play at full-back. Tommy Spurr went off at half-time as a precaution with a head injury and was replaced at left-back by Eddie Nolan with Frank Simek coming on at right-back. Nolan looked much more assured on the left side and so the boss must choose whether to go with the side that started the Leicester match or the team that started the second half of that game.
West Brom are also free of an new injury or suspension problems but Roberto Di Matteo may choose to make changes following the weekend’s disappointing 3-1 defeat at QPR, a result that saw them drop out of the automatic promotion places.
Former Owls midfielder Chris Brunt has been in god form of late and is expected to line up against his ex-employees. Changes could however be made in other areas of the team. Graham Dorrans, Joe Mattock and Robert Koren could all be pushing for recalls to the starting line up.
New loan signing and alleged Owls target Steven Reid, primarily a midfielder made his Baggies debut at right-back on Saturday and although he has played there a few times before it appears to be an area of weakness for the home side and one that the Owls will surely look to exploit with the likes of Tommy Miller and Jermaine Johnson possibly switching sides – both were impressive in the win over Leicester.
The win against the Foxes on Saturday halted a 3-match losing streak for the Owls but since back-to back away wins over Barnsley and Blackpool Wednesday have lost their last three on their travels.
West Brom have only won one of their last four in the league and were recently knocked out of the F.A Cup on home soil by Reading. Despite this slight recent dip the Baggies have only lost one home league match to a team outside the top six in the Championship this season, to Crystal Palace back in September.
Wednesday suffered a demoralising 4-0 home reverse to West Brom in November but have faired quite well on their recent visits to the Hawthorns. The Owls came away with a 1-1 draw on their last visit in the 2007/08 season all took all three points in the previous campaign. In fact Wednesday are unbeaten at the Hawthorns since losing 4-0 in 1975, a run of eight matches to date.