Sheffield Wednesday: Fan Preview - Win at Plymouth irrelevant if not followed up at Oxford

On Saturday, Wednesday beat Plymouth 4-2 in which, in my view, was one of our best performances of the season. We dominated throughout and we really shouldn’t have even let them back in the game, with the scoring two goals from three shots.

However, although that result and performance was fantastic and does give cause for optimism, if we fail to follow it up with another result against Oxford this weekend, I feel that the Plymouth win becomes quite pointless.

We have seen several times this season where we have had brilliant results and believed we had turned a corner, only for us to go back to disappointing results and performances soon after. This is why, that if we don’t beat Oxford, the Plymouth victory is just another to add to the spark in our season that constantly fizzles out once again.

Saying that, a victory against Oxford would be huge and really starts to put us back in the play off picture. A good run of form is very badly needed right now and victory at Oxford would breed confidence in the squad that may well see us turn a corner.

Against Plymouth, not a single Wednesday player put in a bad performance, everyone seemed to work for each other and the sustained dominance throughout showed our capability to brush aside even the better teams in this division.

The game showed how vital a fit Massimo Luongo is to Sheffield Wednesday. When he is playing, he is undoubtedly, in my mind, the best player in the division. He controls the game from midfield and gives the other midfielders the confidence to venture more forward knowing they have the presence of Luongo behind them to protect the defence.

Wednesday are still yet to lose a game this season where Luongo and Windass have featured, and that should come as a surprise to nobody. Whenever they play, my confidence for a victory is always bolstered.

Nathaniel Mendez-Laing was another that was very impressive against Plymouth. He was very direct and used his pace and power to cause Plymouth all sorts of problems throughout. He took his goal brilliantly with a lovely curling effort going in the top corner in a goal he richly deserved.

With he signing of Jordan Storey from Preston this week, it seems as though we are trying to sort out the defensive issues we have caused by the injuries. I have seen a lot of great reviews on Storey and it would be good to see him in action at Oxford.

Oxford will be a very tough opponent yet again for us, however, they have lost their last two and not one in their last three. Our away form is fairly poor compared to our home form, so it would be great to see us go to Oxford and produce another display of domination to really put a statement out there, and I see a real chance to do that against an out of form Oxford side.

Line Up I would go with: (5-3-2) Peacock-Farrell, Hunt, Palmer, Hutchinson, Storey, Mendez-Laing, Luongo, Dele-Bashiru, Bannan, Windass, Gregory

Score Prediction: Oxford 1-2 Wednesday