Purse looking for positives from Sheffield Wednesday troubles

The Owls spent nearly an hour locked in the dressing room on Tuesday night as manager Alan Irvine conducted a post-mortem into a 2-0 home defeat by Huddersfield Town.

Purse felt the exchange of views was a positive step if the club are to return to winning ways in Sunday's FA Cup first-round tie at non-league Southport.

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"Even if we had won, Sunday's game would still have been a potential banana skin," he said. "There are always upsets in the

FA Cup and we have to make sure we are not one of them.

"You have to take criticism on the chin and you have to take what gets said in a dressing room. It's only good when things like that happen.

"But it is easy to say things in a dressing room, it's when you cross the white line that you need to put it into practice," he added. "A lot has been said and now we need to be big men and react to it and produce it on the pitch."

The Owls dropped to 10th in the League One table after Tuesday's defeat and now sit three points adrift of the play-off zone with 15 games gone. Purse remains confident that the team will win promotion but says they can only afford to lose another six games.

"We have lost six games in the league now and Huddersfield got into the play-offs by losing 12 last season," he said. "You do the maths. It shows you what sort of run we have to go on between now and the end of the season to get into the play-offs as a minimum."

Manager Irvine admitted Owls fans were entitled to vent fury during Tuesday night's game.

"I can understand the crowd being angry and upset. I am. The players are too," he said. "We all know that people respond better to praise than criticism but the fans were annoyed, rightly so, by the way our players performed."

Winger Jermaine Johnson will definitely miss this weekend's

FA Cup tie after suffering a recurrence of a hamstring injury on his first start of the season.

Wednesday yesterday insisted the loss of the lead investor in the front-running takeover bid was not a major blow to the club. Dubai-based businessman Kevin Mundie withdrew his interest for a combination of personal and business reasons, leaving remaining members of his consortium to decide whether they will develop their own bid.

A club source said: "The reality is that we are in same position as we where two weeks ago, namely that a number of parties are in detailed talks with the (club's) bank over a long-term investment plan for Sheffield Wednesday.

"Everybody involved in this process wants to see a successful conclusion that ultimately leads to the end of the club's financial worries."

The source added that the Owls expect interest from other investors to crystalise only close to a winding-up petition hearing, for unpaid tax, on November 17.