Match Day Thread Sheffield Wednesday@ Deepdale 20/2/2016

Due to both sides inability to get through to the 5th round of the cup, the scheduled league match will take place on Saturday although Wednesday probably should be involved in the cup after their late collapse at Shrewsbury.
An interesting clash awaits, Wednesday have propelled themselves into the play offs with an 8 match unbeaten run since a defeat against Middlesbrough on 28/12/2015.
Last time out they defeated Brentford 4-0 although the Bees were reduced to 10 men early doors. They have a strong squad on the bench last time were Turner and McGeady. A non too shabby forward line including Forestieri who has about 14 goals this season, Bannan classy player and our ex one lace Wallace seems to be having a better than normal season and is always a decent taker of dead ball kicks.
However interestingly and well under the radar we have crept up the league to 11th, having spent only £50,000 on the team that won at Wolves last week. Strangely though we appear to be getting little credit from other fans on Social media, many of the so called bigger clubs supporters cannot understand why their expensively put together sides cannot beat in their words a poor/dire/s**t Preston side(delete as applicable), maybe it proves that you do not need to spend money to be successful, what we have is a squad that gets on together and plays for each other, we have no pre madonnas, we just play to our strengths, so beware Wednesday do not roll up on Saturday expecting to walk it, if you do you join the ranks of Derby, Hull, Wolves and Ipswich who have failed miserably since Christmas and the other bigger teams earlier in the season who have also struggled against us. (Rant over)
It is not directed at anyone on this forum.
The Owls won 3-1 in the return fixture although we didn't help ourselves with some epic defending of the bad case. The Owls have sold their allocation of 5500 so a great atmosphere will be on the cards.
Team wise Gallagher was struggling on Saturday though expect him to get through this game, Pearson is now free of a ban, apart from that expect us to play our away formation on Saturday and try to catch Wednesday on the break.

 

Ummm, 'bigger clubs'! All of them have struggled at one time and another. The Owls were the 3rd tier not long ago. Even Leicester, the go-to club at the moment, the darling of the media, should have been kicked out of the League for financial craziness. Thanks to Mr Hemmings, PNEFC is a well financially structured club, rescued from the era of Derek whathisname!
I do think that when NE reach 55 points, SG should hand over the management of the team to his management team and go scouting for the rest of the season. His deputies should use the remaining games to blood the young players in order to weld them into a 22 player squad and leave the loanees and some of the senior players (not all) on the bench as support. This would ensure a disciplined and cohesive unit playing each players to his skills BEFORE the Summer break. When they return to preseason training, they will still be that unit ready to accept new players with complementary skills. SG would have a chance to watch clubs either involved in promotion or relegation battles and view the character of players under pressure. It was a thought well received by posters on LEP except one who calls himself 'The Kid'. He has a thing about 'the crew' and 'St Gregs'.
You are a seasoned and true supporter of NE. What do you think?

 

Think the manager needs to be there on match days we have a decent scouting network, given today's result pressure is virtually off in the next 15 games let's see where it takes us, you never know string some results together and that 6th place could possibly be up for grabs..

Well this season just gets better and better although what the result would have been if Wednesday had not been reduced to 10 men halfway through the second half we shall never know because at the time it was end to end stuff with both sides looking dangerous.
A large following from across the Pennines were in attendance, having shifted 5500 tickets the away following were in boisterous voice during a good first half. Wednesday started the brighter with the immense Nuhiu a menace in the air, the Wednesday front three also interchanged and had some super passing moves which caused North End's defence problems.
After the initial flurry North End started to look dangerous when they got the ball out wide were Woods and Cunningham got success.
Wednesday had a chance from a free kick but Wallace's kick was easily cleared.North End had the better chances with an early Garner range finder being easily saved by Westwood, before the Owls keeper pulled off a better save from Garner's header.
Woods had stolen in on the blind side and was narrowly wide with a pass com shot, Reach also blasted two efforts narrowly wide. However the best chance for the home side fell to Clarke who when clear from a Gallagher free kick put his shot wide. Towards half time Wednesday started to press.
A slow start to the second half with both teams cancelling each other out Wednesday had a chance to score from about 10 yards but the effort went over the bar. Nuhiu was well placed but looked to shoot but mis hit it and it was cleared, whilst Lees was only inches away from heading home across from Wallace.
Yellow cards started to be shown, one to Forestieri for diving, whether he did o not is anybodies guess but it was to prove pivotal when he deliberately hand balled a cross in the North End area. It took him about five hours to leave the field of play following his red.
Advantage North End, Wednesday changed formation to 441 to limit the amount of space the home side had but it did not take long to unpick them after a nice flowing move, Woods put in a super cross, defenders and goalkeeper did not go for it, Garner did though and his powerful header found the net.
Credit to Wednesday another formation change and they were now playing 324, Wallace tried to bring the ball back onto favoured left foot but was denied by Cunningham and then Wednesday's big chance Joao was denied by a fantastic tackle by Clarke when a goal looked certain. North End spent the six minutes of injury time in the corner flag area but still should have scored a second when Pearson stabbed wide but the points were ous.
Top game of football between two sides who gave everything. Finally the statistics say Wednesday did not have a shot on target.

Preston North End 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 Att 16923

 

Preston boss Simon Grayson:

"We're delighted, we knew it would be a tough test for us.

"We challenged the players to get a win to kick off this week with three games. Every single one of them carried out the plan we've worked on all week.

"When we had to defend we defended and we limited a top team to not having a shot on target."

Sheffield Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal:

"The first yellow card is unbelievable because it was a clear foul to us and he gives a yellow to Fernando. If he doesn't go down he will be in front of goal in the area with a very clear chance to score. For me he didn't dive in that moment because if he did it was not a good choice. He blocked him.

"I am happy with the attitude of our players, they tried to win the game, but we are unhappy with the score of course.

"The fans were amazing again, the game was balanced, we both created chances and in the second half we looked as though we would score but the red card changed the game. Even with 10 players we took risks and the players fought until the last second to try and win the game."