Swansea City vs Sheffield Wednesday preview: Both sides looking to get back to winning ways

Will Swansea inch closer towards a play-off spot or will Wednesday go on step further to secure Championship football next season?

Sheffield Wednesday manager Garry Monk and Swansea City manager Steve Cooper stand on the touch line during the Sky Bet Championship match between Sheffield Wednesday and Swansea City at Hillsborough Stadium on November 09, 2019. (Photo by Athena Pictures/Getty Images)

By Ben Woodcock3 July 2020 23:08 BST

Since the restart, both of these sides have mustered a win, a loss and a draw which bodes for an unpredictable contest at The Liberty Stadium on Sunday at noon.

While The Owls have looked bright in their first three games after the enforced break, they came unstuck against a strong West Bromwich Albion side who put three past them at Hillsborough on Wednesday night.

The Swans meanwhile earned a hard-earned point at The Den against fellow play-off chasers Millwall where a Rhian Brewster free-kick hit the bar before the back of Millwall goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski and into the back of the net.

This levelled the score-line just before half time and was Brewster’s sixth goal in 14 outings since joining on loan from Liverpool in early January. The threat of the young forward should prove a good test for Dominic Iorfa at the heart of Wednesday’s defence.

Garry Monk’s side have adopted a 3-5-2 system since the break which has benefited the performances of the likes of Barry Bannan ,Connor Wickham and Massimo Luongo.

Wickham will be looking to add another goal to his tally after he notched against both Nottingham Forest and Bristol City.

The on-loan frontman has come into his own in the last three games and has naturally taken over the mantle from top scorer Steven Fletcher who has now left the club, for sure he is the man Steve Cooper needs to pay close attention to.

Head to head

The reverse fixture at Hillsborough in December was a cracker with drama at the death as the spoils were shared in a 2-2 draw.

Andrew Ayew opened the scoring for the visitors after Kieren Westwood fumbled a corner into his path and with an empty goal he made no mistake.

The Swans led right up to the 81^stminute when Fernando Forestieri pounced to level matters. It then looked as though Monk beat his former club when Morgan Fox struck in minute 91.

There was still time for more drama though and in the 94^thminute of the tie Ben Wilmot snatched a point when he headed home after Westwood again didn’t claim the corner.

Wednesday have won just one of their last nine encounters against Swansea and have not beaten their hosts in South Wales since a 1-0 victory on August 27^th1983, the opening day of what was then the Cannon Championship.

Mick Lyons scored that day for The Owls and that season Wednesday were promoted to the top-flight while Swansea slipped into the third division.

Team news

Julian Borner should return to Monk’s starting line-up after missing out against West Brom due to a dead leg.

The German defender trained Thursday and Friday and has proved his fitness.

Meanwhile, Cooper will be without Joe Rodon (ankle) and Ben Wilmot (knee) for the remainder of the campaign.

Mike Van Der Hoorn is still working his way back to fitness and will miss out.

View from the dugouts

Garry Monk: “We want to finish these games with consistency, we are using this period to improve a lot of things, we have a lot of tough test’s, but we want to finish as high as we can and take the positives into next season.”

Steve Cooper: “They've got very experienced and high-profile Championship strikers. We know exactly what they can do and what they're capable of.

“The objective is to close the gap, that’s for sure. All the games now are massive.”