Sheffield Wednesday v Ipswich Town
Saturday 29th January 2022 – 15:00
Hillsborough Stadium
Pre-Match Thoughts - Bluemike
Burns Night For Sure............
Town celebrated their very own "Burns Night" down in SouthWest London on Tuesday evening, after a bit of a shaky start the Blues turned in a much better second half display to cap another dogged yet unspectacular display and in doing so secure the crucial Three points to keep their late Play Off drive on track. How apt was it that Wes Burns plundered a brace on Burns Night to grab all the headlines and there is no doubt he really is on fire right now as he took his seasons tally to Eight Goals.
Kieran McKenna decided, somewhat surprisingly, to leave out Bersant Celina, Conor Chaplin & Macauley Bonne from the starting line up, it was something of a gamble and raised more than a few eyebrows prior to kick off but we are learning fast not to question his decisions at it was a ploy that by the close of play had paid off with another win and at the same time it gave crucial minutes to some fringe players, none more so than Kayden Jackson who appears to have been brought in from the cold and it did not go unnoticed when McKenna said Jackson had really impressed in training and deserved a chance, having a hand in the build up to the opening goal will have done him no harm at all and it could just be we have another Striker back in favour.
With Town now making it Four wins from Five under McKenna's leadership belief is slowly growing that the Play Off's are not a distant dream, despite teams having games in hand on us we are now a mere Five Points off Sixth place and it's very much all to play for with plenty of games to go. The loss of Samy Morsy is a blow but we showed there is hope without him and despite the fact we will come up against better opposition than Wimbledon we have shown results can be achieved and that we are far from being a One man show. New signing Tyreeq Bakinson has impressed me so far, steady, he goes about his job with minimal fuss and does all the basics right, he definitely likes to get stuck in and hasn't really wasted a pass thus far, he has not been in the building Five minutes so to have played twice already and been part of two winning teams is indeed a promising start.
As I said after the Bolton game we will not win every game and despite some fans seemingly quick to jump on the negative bandwagon again after the defeat I feel we are very much on course, two wins from every Three matches will be enough and that is exactly what we are achieving at present, with those winnable games coming up and with confidence high there is no reason at all why this cannot be maintained.
Clearly there are still things, particularly defensively that need to be worked on, a couple of times a largely ineffective Wimbledon side caused us a problem ans were close to scoring in a game where they never looked capable of winning, it was more a case of us being our own worst enemies so if we can just tighten up in One or Two ares I believe we will be very hard to beat in the run in, especially as we are right up there in the goalscoring charts. Taking the One game at a time mentality is paying off and for now we should just enjoy another win and drool over the current form of the team and in particular the efforts of our Player Of The season in waiting, Wes Burns.
Before we get into that run of very winnable games we have the small matter of this weekends trip to Hillsborough and a match up with the Owls that are Sheffield Wednesday. Having seen them at Portman Road back in September we really have nothing to fear here either, on our day we are better than them and there is no reason why we cannot get another good result here too. Wednesday are One of those teams in the mix alongside us to force their way into the play offs and as such this becomes a bit of a Six Pointer, with them having games in hand too a defeat here could be damaging, if not terminal. I think even a share of the spoils would be a very good result and would keep our noses in front of One of our rivals.
The Owls are currently in Ninth place on Forty Points but have lost Three of the last Four games, a Five goal Thrashing at Sunderland was followed by defeat at Oxford Utd before a morale boosting victory at home to Plymouth Argyle, however the poor form returned with a disappointing defeat at lowly Shrewsbury Town last time out. Their goals seem to be shared around the squad with only Lee Gregory, who is on Eight, having managed to score more than Five. Barry Bannen is the stand out name who is their playmaker and can on his day run games, our Midfield will need to be on it to win that particular battle as keeping him quiet, assuming he plays, will be key.
Wednesday have strengthened their squad in recent days with experienced defender Harlee Dean arriving on loan from Birmingham City while Arsenal have loaned England under-21 international striker Tyreece John-Jules to the Hillsborough club. This is a tough One to call, going on Town's efforts at Bolton you wouldn't give us much of a chance but that is not the norm, it was more an off day, if Town can replicate some of the form from recent games and tighten up a bit defensively I definitely think we can bring back something, if we take our chances it could even be another Three point haul, now that would be a successful away day but head is saying low score draw which would not be unwelcome in this one. COYB'S
The Opposition – Sheffield Wednesday
The club was a cricket club when it formed in 1820 as The Wednesday Cricket Club, Lancashire (named after the day of the week when they played their matches). A meeting on the evening of Wednesday 4 September 1867 at the Adelphi Hotel established a footballing side to keep the team together and fit during the winter months.
On 1 February 1868, Wednesday played their first competitive football match as they entered the Cromwell Cup.
Charles Clegg joined Wednesday in 1867, starting a relationship that would last the rest of his life and eventually lead to him becoming the club's chairman. He also became president and chairman of the Football Association and was known as the "Napoleon of Football". In 1876, they acquired Scot James Lang. Although he was not employed by the club, he was given a job by a member of the Sheffield Wednesday board that had no formal duties. He is now acknowledged as the first professional football player in England.
The football club turned professional in 1887 after pressure from players threatening to defect to other clubs. The move to professionalism took the club from Bramall Lane, which had taken a share of the ticket revenue, to the new Olive Grove.
In 1889, the club became founder members of the Football Alliance. Despite finishing the following season bottom of the Alliance, they were eventually elected to the expanded Football League in 1892.
Due to an expansion of the local railway lines, the club was told that they would have to find a new ground for the 1899–1900 season. After a difficult search, the club finally bought some land in the village of Owlerton, which at the time was several miles outside the Sheffield city boundaries. Construction of a new stadium (now known as Hillsborough Stadium) was completed within months.
In the summer of 1912, a Wednesday player, George Robertson, presented the club with an owl mascot. A monkey mascot introduced some years earlier had not brought much luck.
The club was almost relegated in the 1927–28 season, but they pulled off a great escape, rising from bottom to 14th. Wednesday went on to win the League title the following season (1928–29), which started a run that saw the team finishing lower than third only once until 1936. The period was topped off with the team winning the FA Cup for the third time in the club's history in 1935.
The 1950s saw Wednesday unable to consistently hold on to a position in the top flight and this period became known as the yo-yo years. After being promoted back up in 1950, they were relegated three times, although each time they bounced back up by winning the Second Division the following season
This led to a decade of successfully remaining in the First Division, which included a run to the FA Cup final in 1966.
Off the field, the club was embroiled in the British betting scandal of 1964, in which three of their players were accused of match fixing and betting against their own team in an away game at Ipswich Town. The three were subsequently convicted and, on release from prison, banned from football for life.
Wednesday were relegated at the end of the 1969–70 season, starting the darkest period in the club's history. After going into free-fall, they dropped to the Third Division for the first time in their history and were marooned there for five seasons. The club was almost relegated to the Fourth Division in 1976, but a revival under the management of Jack Charlton, and the aid of coach Tony Toms and – after Charlton resigned in 1983 – Howard Wilkinson, saw them return to the First Division in 1984.
Sheffield Wednesday spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s in the top tier of English football.
On 15 April 1989, the club's stadium was the scene of one of the worst sporting tragedies ever, at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, at which 96 Liverpool fans were fatally crushed in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium. The tragedy resulted in many changes taking places at Hillsborough and all other leading stadiums in England.
The 1990–91 season was the only one out of sixteen in a row that Wednesday spent in a lower division, but the season is best remembered by fans for Wednesday's swift return to the top flight and their League Cup victory over Manchester United to win their first major trophy for over 50 years. This League Cup triumph was the last domestic cup to be won by a club competing outside the top level of English football.
Wednesday's fortunes took a turn for the worse when a succession of managers failed to maintain this form, and new managers spent small fortunes building squads that were ultimately ineffective, which saw the club's debts get out of control and Wednesday being relegated down to League 1.
After narrowly avoiding yet another relegation in 2003–04 and a poor start to the 2004–05 Football League One campaign, Paul Sturrock took over the Manager’s role and they were promoted back to the Championship via the playoffs. Sturrock was sacked after a poor start to the 2006–07 season and replaced by Brian Laws.
The 2007–08 season began with Wednesday's worst ever start to a season, as they lost six league games in a row, and they only avoided relegation with a win on the last day of the season. Halfway through Sheffield Wednesday's 2009–10 season, Brian Laws was sacked, and was replaced by Alan Irvine. On the last day of the season, needing a win to stay up, Wednesday drew 2–2 with Crystal Palace and were relegated to League One.
Between July and November 2010, Sheffield Wednesday faced a series of winding up orders for unpaid tax and VAT bills. On 29 November 2010, Milan Mandarić agreed to purchase the club. The purchase was completed after an Extraordinary General Meeting of Sheffield Wednesday's shareholders on 14 December 2010, during which 99.7% of shareholders voted to sell the company to Milan Mandarić's UK Football Investments for £1, as well as settling the club’s outstanding debts.
Gary Megson replaced Irvine as the club's manager in February 2011 and the Owls went on to finish 15th in League One. The following season, the Owls pushed on for promotion out of League One. But, after falling behind Charlton and Sheffield United at the top of the table, Megson was sacked and replaced by Dave Jones. Jones went on to guide the Owls to promotion to the Championship on the final day with a 2–0 home victory over Wycombe.
Following this season, the Owls struggled in the Championship. However, with a better run of form after Christmas, the club secured Championship safety on the final day of the season, beating Middlesbrough 2–0.
In the 2013/2014 season, Wednesday finished in 16th place with 53 points, ending the season under Stuart Gray’s management following Jones’ departure.
In 2014, the club was again taken over by a new owner, Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri, who purchased the club from Milan Mandarić for £37.5m
Chansiri stated his intention to win promotion back to the club for the 2017–18 season – the football club's 150th anniversary – and came close to achieving that goal a year head of schedule, with new coach Carlos Carvalhal leading the club into the end of season play-offs at the end of the 2015–16 season, but Wednesday were beaten in the final by Hull City at Wembley.
In the 2016/17 Sheffield Wednesday performed well again finishing in fourth spot but were beaten in the semi’s by Huddersfield on penalties.
In January 2018, Jos Luhukay was appointed as the manager taking over the role from Carlos Carvalhal.
In January 2019 Steve Bruce replaced Luhukay as Manager after his sacking from Aston Villa, however, Bruce controversially resigned in July 2019 to manage Newcastle United after Wednesday finished the season in 12th place.
On 6 September 2019, the club appointed former Birmingham City manager Garry Monk as the new manager, who achieved a 16th-place finish in a season that was interrupted from March to June by the COVID-19 pandemic. On 31 July 2020, Sheffield Wednesday were found guilty of breaking EFL spending rules and began the 2020–21 season on –12 points, though the deficit was later reduced to –6 upon appeal.
On 9 November 2020, Monk was sacked after a poor start to the season and was replaced by Tony Pulis. However, Pulis was also dismissed after only 45 days in charge on 28 December 2020. After a few months with Neil Thompson as caretaker manager, Darren Moore was appointed as the club's third permanent manager of the season in March 2021. Despite taking the fight to the final day, Moore could not prevent relegation come the end of the season, bringing Wednesday's 9-year spell in the Championship to an end.
The Manager – Darren Moore
Form Guide
Sheffield Wed Last 5 Matches - Currently in 9th place with 40 point
11 Dec Crewe Alexandra 0 - 2 Sheffield Wed
30 Dec Sunderland 5 - 0 Sheffield Wed
2 Jan Shrewsbury 1 - 0 Sheffield Wed
15 Jan Sheffield Wed 4 - 2 Plymouth
22 Jan Oxford Utd 3 - 2 Sheffield Wed
Ipswich Last 5 Matches currently in 8th place with 41 points
1 Jan Ipswich Town pp. Lincoln City
8 Jan Gillingham 0 - 4 Ipswich Town
15 Jan Bolton 2 - 0 Ipswich Town
22 Jan Ipswich Town 2 - 1 Accrington
25 Jan AFC Wimbledon 0 - 2 Ipswich Town
Match Referee – Darren Bond
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 0 IPSWICH TOWN 1
(gotta keep the glass half full 
) #coyb 
speak later.
