It’s matchday 13 in the Championship and Sheffield Wednesday will look to continue their pursuit of promotion when they welcome fellow promotion chasers Middlesbrough to the Hillsborough stadium in the weekend’s first fixture on Friday night. No team likes to go to the international break on the back of a defeat but Middlesbrough surprisingly lost 0-2 to Nottingham Forest at home and Tony Pulis will be looking for a reaction from his team when they travel to Hillsborough. Boro were on an unbeaten run in five games in all competitions before that loss and must rediscover that form when they face the owls.
Dutch Coach Jos Luhukay started the season with no wins in his opening three games but has since stabilised the situation winning five games and amassing 19 points to reach 6th position in the Championship. The owls won their league fixture ahead of the break beating Bristol City 2-1 away with a second half brace from Lucas Joao before Bristol pulled a goal back late in the game. The owls have improved from a disappointing 2017/2018 campaign having only lost once in their last nine games in the league.
Jos Luhukay has set up his side to be competitive this season despite losing influential players in the summer and operating on a low budget. He has organised his side to be more defensively cohesive as the opening day 2-3 loss to Wigan remains the only time they have conceded more than two goals this season and they are yet to suffer a home league loss this season.
Despite Boro’s loss to Nottingham they are still well placed in the Championship, currently sitting fourth. Tony Pulis is well known to drill players in the defensive side of the game, hence it’s no surprise that Boro have conceded the least number of goals in the league – 6, even though that comes with its associated challenge of not scoring many goals. That is accounted for in the 14 goals they have scored so far in the league – the least in the top 6.
Boro leads the way in the head-to-head meetings. They have 34 wins while the owls have 31 wins in 77 previous meetings. Boro remains unbeaten in 5 of their last 6 games against Sheffield Wednesday. They have 4 wins in that streak. Last season in the league, Boro win 2-1 at Hillsborough and played out a goalless draw at the Riverside taking four points in the process.
Sam Hutchinson, Sam Winnall and Morgan Fox continued their journey to fitness playing in a Sheffield Under-23s fixture on Friday and will be assessed for their readiness for this match. Marco Matias is a doubt due to a hamstring injury and Gary Hooper has suffered a setback on his groin injury.
Adam Clayton has been very impressive as a shield for Boro’s back four and may be recalled for this game after being left out of the Forest game. Britt Assombalonga is Boro’s top scorer with four goals but Pulis may yet go with Jordan Hugill as he is physically strong and has a better ‘hold up play’ especially if Boro deploys a 4-5-1 formation.
Boro have the meanest defence in the Championship and Tony Pulis will probably show his pragmatic side playing away to fellow promotion hopefuls. Expect this to be a low scoring game and probably end in a draw.
Verdict
A hard fought draw.
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