West Bromwich Albion v Sheffield Wednesday - Owls work on remedy for their inability to find the net

Barry Bannan of Sheffield Wednesday reacts during the Sky Bet Championship match between Sheffield Wednesday and Wigan Athletic at Hillsborough on October 5, 2019. (Picture: George Wood/Getty Images)

Only Nottingham Forest, with 20 goals, have netted fewer than the Owls’ 21 goals in the top half of the Championship after 16 games.

Striker Steven Fletcher is Wednesday’s top scorer with five goals but has not scored in his last six outings.

Since Garry Monk arrived at Hillsborough in September, he has concentrated on improving the team’s defensive shape.

Barry Bannan with top scorer Steven Fletcher (Picture: Steve Ellis)

But Scotland international Bannan – who has yet to score this season after scoring five goals last term – revealed training had been geared towards the opposition goal over the last fortnight.

“We’ve been working on our attacking,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that we’ve nailed the defensive stuff but we’re probably better there than attacking at the minute.

“We’ve done a lot of defensive stuff so we’ve been working on the attacking side of things, how we can make more opportunities.

“We made lots of opportunities against Swansea and we weren’t able to take them.

“The two-week break has given the gaffer time to work on things that we wouldn’t normally get on a week-to-week basis. It’s been a good week and everyone has enjoyed it.

“We’ve created a lot of chances to be honest, but we’ve not been as clinical as we could be in finishing teams off and taking our chances.

“I’m really desperate (to score). I said at the start of the season I wanted to score a few goals.

“Time is running out, I’ll probably be saying this again at the end of the season, I’m not happy with my goal tally. But there are still a lot of games to play.

“We did a question sheet this week that was given to us by the gaffer and we had to fill out what we wanted to improve on. That was one of mine – getting more goals. Hopefully I can start on Saturday.”

The Owls will certainly have to be more ruthless in front of goal today – at leaders West Bromwich Albion – after dropping five points from winning positions in their previous two games against Blackburn Rovers and Swansea.

In both games, the Owls conceded in stoppage time to leave them sat in eighth. “We could’ve been a bit more streetwise,” admitted Bannan.