High Flying Owls Looking to Swoop on Rovers

While the achievements of Sheffield United’s remarkable FA Cup run to the semi-final may have stolen the majority of headlines in the Steel City lately, their cross city neighbours, Wednesday, have been going about their business rather purposefully of late, rattling off four wins in their last six league outings.
Fresh from resounding victories over Birmingham City and Queens Park Rangers, the Owls travel to local rivals Doncaster Rovers on Saturday in a fixture where a win would all but secure their Championship status for another season, as they push for a top ten finish for the first time in seven years.

Manager Stuart Gray (right) said: "I've always said the incentive is to chip away at teams above and finish as high as possible. I know we are taking an unbelievable following to Doncaster and I am very grateful to the fans for that. The challenge for the players is to put on a performance for the supporters and continue on this winning run.”

Gray’s opposite number Paul Dickov (below) has also seen his side undergo somewhat of a rejuvenation of late and it looks as though a 5-0 thumping at the hands of Bournemouth was a catalyst for his side’s recent return of seven points out of a possible nine, “There’s no way I’m going to let them slip back into the performance I got [at Bournemouth] because it’s still fresh in my mind and it still hurts me,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of times this season where we’ve reacted to a bad result and then not done so well. We really need to concentrate and improve on the last three games.”

Rovers, who are looking to edge further away from the drop zone, have won the last four encounters between the two sides, including their only away win so far this season; a 1-0 victory at Hillsborough in September.


The aforementioned Blades, unbeaten in eight league games, face table-toppers Wolves – beaten in midweek by Crawley – at Bramall Lane in a game kicking off at 1.25pm to commemorate theirs and the Football League’s 125th anniversary.
Vintage Blades

Barnsley, who sacked their assistant manager Micky Mellon and are currently bottom of the Championship, host Bournemouth at Oakwell while League 1’s fifth placed team Rotherham United travel to sixth placed Peterborough. 


The Sporting Hack will be providing live Twitter updates of Doncaster Rovers v Sheffield Wednesday (kick off 3pm) from the Keepmoat Stadium on Saturday - @thesportinghack

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