Sheffield Wednesday v QPR: We were in false place when I took over – Gray

Saturday’s comprehensive win over Birmingham City moved the Owls 13 points clear of the bottom three with the next target in head coach Stuart Gray’s sights being the three White Rose teams immediately above his side.

Victory tonight over faltering promotion hopefuls Queens Park Rangers would see Wednesday climb above both Leeds United and Huddersfield Town, and move alongside Middlesbrough on 45 points.

Battling for mid-table bragging rights might not represent the grandest of ambitions, but considering where Wednesday have come from, it is a creditable achievement at which to aim.

They were the last team out of 92 in the Football League to win a competitive game this season, a sequence that spanned 13 matches and three months before they shocked Reading 5-2 at Hillsborough on November 2.

That result was not enough to save Dave Jones, and although his successor Gray was keen to play down talk of exceeding his own expectations yesterday ahead of the visit of big-spending QPR, there can be no doubting the positive influence he has had.

Since taking temporary charge on December 1, with the Owls six points adrift of safety, the 53-year-old from Withernsea in East Yorkshire has guided the Owls to 31 points, with 27 of those coming via nine victories.

“The objective when I started was to get out of the bottom three,” said Gray.

“I knew with the quality I was inheriting we were in a false position. We’d had six draws from matches that we could have won so it was that fine line between success and failure, as well as a little bit of bad luck at times.

“So it’s been a good run and we keep just setting ourselves little goals and challenges.

“We’ve just got to keep winning, keep looking upwards and keep clawing teams back in.

“I call it page one on Teletext, because you used to have to wait three minutes before page two came up and it lingered on the bottom half. We want to be on page one.

“So I just set little challenges, our next one being to climb above Leeds, and then I think it’s Middlesbrough and Watford.

“We’ll just try and achieve what we can.”

A hallmark of Gray’s reign has been his insistence on deflecting the praise from himself onto his players.

He credited the group when chairman Milan Mandaric finally gave him the head coach’s role after a lengthy and encouraging caretakership, but the players, in turn, speak highly of his man-management skills and it is this which provides the best insight into the reasons behind their renaissance.

Players like Jose Semedo and Keiran Lee have been reborn under Gray, while he has finally been able to establish a central defensive pairing in Glenn Loovens and Oguchi Onyewu on which to build.

“I’ve just been positive around the place, getting people to look up not down, because the last thing we want to do is be looking over our shoulder,” added Gray.

“If I was allowed to bring the loan players in that I have been able to then I thought this would be possible. And there’s players who featured under Dave who have seen this is as a second opportunity and grasped it.

“The challenge for my players now is to get into that top half, because then we become more of an attractive proposition when we’re trying to get players for next season. We haven’t achieved anything yet; we want to get as high up the league as possible so I can then build my own team for next season – then I’ll probably be judged a lot more.”

Gray has begun planning for next season in terms of retaining young players such as Liam Palmer and Caolan Lavery, both of whom have suggested they have bright futures, the former on a consistent basis and the latter in flashes, like Saturday’s virtuoso performance against the Blues.

Gray would also like to keep the partnership of Loovens and Onyewu intact for next season, but says contract talks with them and other senior players will not be held until Wednesday’s safety is mathematically confirmed.

On tonight’s opponents QPR, who have come unstuck in recent weeks despite their enormous budget, Gray added: “They’re full of quality, but we’re playing with confidence and have nothing to fear.”

Joe Mattock is available, as is Chris Kirkland after a calf strain, but Sam Hutchinson is a doubt.

Last six games: Sheffield Wednesday WLWLLW, QPR LLDWLW.

Last time: Sheff Wed 1 QPR 2; November 7, 2009; Championship.

Referee: P Tierney (Lancashire).