Birmingham City v Sheffield Wednesday: Wednesday hoping to drag rivals into relegation scrap

DAVE JONES believes teams as high as Leeds United could be dragged into the relegation battle to stay in the Championship.
Connor WickhamConnor Wickham
Connor Wickham

Before Christmas, the fight for survival seemed to be three from four between Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, Bristol City and Peterborough.

But the quartet of strugglers have seen an upturn in results, meaning ahead of a key evening of Championship action, Jones’s Wednesday side sit just six points off Nottingham Forest and Neil Warnock’s Leeds, 11th and 12th in the table respectively.

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While the Owls can leapfrog Birmingham City tonight with a win at St Andrews, Barnsley can also climb out of the bottom three at the expense of Oakwell visitors Wolverhampton.

And Jones insists several mid-table teams – like Forest who host fellow strugglers Huddersfield Town tonight – may well be sucked into a relegation dogfight over the coming weeks.

“I said a few months ago you want three from six or seven clubs, you don’t want three from four. You need more than that,” said Jones.

“But you look at the division now and it’s three from 12. We just have to keep working hard and clawing teams back around us.

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“We have an opportunity on Tuesday to take points off one of our rivals. That’s important, because if you look at the fixture list everyone seems to be playing the other teams down there.

“There will be a lot of nerves, but it’s best to be going into the last 15 games full of confidence, than not.

“Some teams might not think they are in a relegation battle, then all of a sudden they are. I was talking to the Wolves people not so long ago, and all of a sudden it just hit them.

“Now they are in it and that can happen.

“You lose two or three games in this division, and because of the number of points available, you can fall as quickly as you can rise.”

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Teams with Premier League pedigree like Wolves, Bolton and Birmingham are struggling at the wrong end of the table, and the latter were humbled 4-0 at home by Watford at the weekend.

It was a game Jones witnessed, and he believes Lee Clark’s side are the Championship’s “most unpredictable team”.

“Stuart (Gray) and I went to watch Birmingham on Saturday,” he said.

“Talking to some people at St Andrews, Birmingham are probably the most unpredictable team in the division. They were on the back of not losing a game in five, then lose at home quite heavily to Watford on Saturday.

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“They have just had a bad result in front of their own fans and will want to put that right, there’s no easy games.

“One thing I do know is it will be a tough game as they have some decent players.

“We have got one or two problems, a few players with knocks, but the treatment room is getting quieter which is a good sign.

“If the game had been played on Saturday, we would probably have been missing three or four players,” said Jones, who added left-back Reda Johnson has started running on his return from a foot injury.

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The Owls staged an under-21 game with Wolves yesterday, which saw former Reading striker Mathieu Manset – a free agent and on trial at Hillsborough – feature for Wednesday.

Jones revealed there has been “a lot of interest” in rival clubs taking his fringe players on loan, but said he had spoken to striker Gary Madine on Sunday and opted to keep last season’s top scorer at Hillsborough despite speculation linking him with a move to Doncaster Rovers.

Jones has options in attack tonight with both loan strikers Leroy Lita and Connor Wickham in contention.

The latter is pushing for his first start for Wednesday after joining the Owls from Sunderland earlier this month.

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“The headache is when you havent got players to pick, or they are injured,” said Jones. “It’s not a headache to pick when they are all fully fit.

“We did a shooting session (Sunday) which was a delight to watch, now we have to take it on to the big stage.

“There’s good competition, the thing that breeds a player doing well is competition. The most important players at the football club, at this moment in time, are not the ones playing but the ones just behind. Because they are the ones pushing.

“Everybody here wants to play, vying for a place, and that’s the competition I have been looking for since I walked into the football club.

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“Connor is a young boy, people forget he is just 19, but strong and with a lot of learning to do. Hopefully, he will do that with us.

“He has an ability, Sunderland paid £9m for that potential. Danny Pugh, Leroy Lita are all doing really well, they have added something to the squad which we didn’t have.”

Jones is keeping tabs on Everton midfielder Ross Barkley, after the teenager’s loan deal at Leeds ended earlier this month.

Barkley enjoyed a Hillsborough loan spell at the start of the season, but Everton manager David Moyes opted to resend him out to Leeds with the West Yorkshire club then looking like they would be promotion contenders.

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His time at Elland Road though was an unhappy one, and Jones admits he would like Barkley back at Hillsborough.

“I will keep my cards close to my chest,” he said. “But at the moment I have four (central) midfield players here, it’s not a priority.

“If you ask me would I like Ross Barkley back here, yes, because I think he is a super player.”

Last six games: Birmingham LDWWDL Wednesday WLDWWD.

Referee: S Attwell (Warwickshire).

Last time: Birmingham City 3 Sheffield Wednesday 0, FA Cup, February 19 2011.