Sheffield Wednesday desperately need to fight back if they're to survive in the Championship - Joe Crann's Column

Wednesday will fall behind in plenty more games this season between now and the final game, that’s by the by, but what’s really worrying is their inability to get themselves back into games.

Against Birmingham, with 10 men, the Owls were up against it. They huffed they puffed in the final moments of the game and could’ve snuck an equaliser. But they didn’t. And it was another defeat against a side on a bad run of form.

And as things stand, Wednesday are one of only two teams in the entire division yet to pick up a single point from a losing position this season (Derby County are the other), and they’ve only managed to get level from a losing position once (against Brentford, in a game they still went on to lose).

Aside from the fact that they seem to roll out the red carpet for any team that’s in need of a boost in a bad streak – see Stoke City, Nottingham Forest et al – there doesn’t seem to be any confidence in their ability to get back into a game if they do go behind.

As things stand, Wednesday are the out and out lowest goalscorers in the Championship with 21 goals in 30 games, and there have been only two games this season where they’ve managed to win by more than a single goal.

And therein lies a problem. It’s tough to reverse fixtures from losing positions when that would require at least two goals – something that the side has struggled to do under any of the managers in charge over the last year or so.

You have to go back to the end of 2019 (Steven Fletcher’s brace against Brentford) to find the last time Wednesday successfully reversed a scoreline, and the fact that they’ve only scored one equaliser all season is frankly pretty terrifying.

Neil Thompson says his team needs to fight, and that goes without saying. They’re in a dogfight for survival right now, and have picked up just 16 points from a possible 45 against those in the bottom half.

To give themselves a fighting chance, all of this has to change.

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