This Saturday sees the Tigers travelling to the Owl sanctuary of Hillsborough for the 40th game of the season when we visit Sheffield Wednesday for the return leg of our league campaign which ended up a 2 - 0 defeat back in late November 2024 at our place in front of 21,297 fans and a very angry Hull City contingency, the result spelling out the welcome sacking of German manager Tim Walter who was without a win for 10 games and Owner Acun Illicali had finally ran out of patience much to the Fan's relief.

Our present state doesn't bode much better 4 months later as we sit in 21st position just 1 point above the trap door on 41 points with both Cardiff and Luton snapping at our heels but have their sights set securely on their first hurdle, Cardiff who are 1 point below us and 2 points above the 2 clubs mentioned and it was Cardiff that lead our next opponents 1 - 0 last Saturday putting the Bluebirds above us in the table but thankfully for the Black and Amber army, The Owl's centre back and number 20, Ihiekwe came to our rescue on 61 minutes to level it 1 - 1 putting Cardiff back down below us giving us some breathing space.

The main battle for Saturday is reinstalling the belief and confidence on the back of a poor showing against Luton Town, capitulation to a 1 - 0 own goal defeat against the lower positioned outfit which ended our 5 goal stretch without a loss, which, ironically was against Cardiff who sit below us as mentioned, that ended another 1 - 0 defeat away at The Cardiff City Stadium at the end of February 2025 and Ruben Selles 7th defeat of his tenure at that point.

What we missed on Saturday in the main and IMO was Pedro front and centre. Joseph who's been experimented with on the left and centre didn't really make any impact whereas João is a proven strong, powerful player and when required goes hunting which was a huge miss. I think we can all agree that as a team we were well off colour but fair play to Luton who brought a desperate urgency to the MKM and used their physicality and size to good effect, shutting down Puerta who marched off at full time less than happy as did Crooks before him.

So where do we go from here? Sheffield Wednesday sat in 12th place who couldn't make the top 3 if they won every single game and good value for not even seeing the drop zone, let alone being part of it will be playing for a higher £value position than anything. WE, on the other hand, our Championships life depends on a win and hope Ruben has worked his man management and moral boosting skills to the max to get the lads tuned up for an Alamo style battle.

Interestingly The Owls are not a huge scoring side for their position and at -6 GD are the second highest negative GD team in the champ with Watford being higher in 9th, who we play 3 days after Sheffield Wednesday, away at Vicarage Rd on -4 GD so City on -9 but in 20th place are more than capable on our day to out score both sides to make it 2 away wins out of the next 2 games.

A player interest will be the son of the dispatcher of "That Goal". Josh Windass who wears blue and white these days will be more than keen to impress his dad, Deano, who will no doubt be watching from the stands. Josh has played 37 of the Owls 39 games this season and the central attacking lone central midfielder who plays part of Danny Rohl's preferred 4-4-1-1 formation has scored 11 goals which matches his shirt number with 5 assists and think we can be sure, on a visit to the MKM (which Deano once tried to bring him to under the Allams) will be looking to add to.

Very hard to call on the form book as our last 8 games home and away V the blue and white South Yorkshire side has delivered a mixed bag of results. 3 losses, 4 wins and a draw which included a superb day out for former Tiger Ozan Tufan when he bagged a hat trick when we took the Owls apart at home 4 - 2 in the second game of the 2023 season under the guiding hand of Liam Rosenior who, just the week before had been sent off at Norwich on the opening day.

The last 3 away games at Hillsborough are no better an indicator and don't give away a single clue as to how Saturday will turn out as all we know, is that we have lost 3-1, won 1 - 0 and drew 1 - 1 leaving us a one W.L.D. to pick through the bones of. The last 2 city scorers for City against the Owls are now long gone. Mehlem and Scott Twine so it's about time we carved a new name on the score sheet.

My team sheet. 4 - 2 - 3 - 1
My management instruction. "I do not want to see anything like we saw V Luton"

Pandur.

Coyle. (My Luton MOTM)
Jones.
Hughes.
Macca.
Alzate.
Puerta.
Kamara.
Palmer.
Burstow.
Gelhardt.

Score prediction. 1 - 0 CITY.
Gelhardt.