Sheffield Wednesday must improve or be hit for six, says Barry Bannan

The Owls put on a woeful first-half performance to trail Derby County 3-0 on Saturday.

A huge deflection saw Tom Lawrence open the scoring, but Wednesday then conceded possession in their own half to gift further goals to Lawrence and Jason Knight. Substitute Josh Windass netted in the second half, as the Owls suffered a 3-1 defeat.

It was the latest in a series of poor home performances in 2020 – featuring just one win in seven outings at S6 – having been thumped 5-0 by Blackburn Rovers and 3-0 by Reading.

If mid-table Championship clubs can cruise to one-sided wins against Garry Monk’s team, the fears are Pep Guardiola’s Premier League champions, who yesterday won the Carabao Cup for the third year in succession, could run up a cricket score.

Owls midfielder Bannan has warned his side must cut out the silly mistakes when City arrive in the FA Cup on Wednesday night.

“I will look forward to it. Obviously it is a massive game against a top, top team,” he said.

“We will look forward to it but we can’t do what we did today because if we give the ball away like we have then against top quality opposition like Manchester City it will be punished.

“You want to play against some of the best players and they have got some of the best in the world.

“It is one of the games everyone will want to play in and look forward to. We just need to get this disappointment out of our heads and try and get a positive performance. Individual mistakes killed us and afterwards it is hard to come back after losing 3-0. It is disappointing after the last couple of games. It was not good enough.”

Match report: Page 4