The Championship rivals Sheffield Wednesday are using as inspiration to turn their form around after Blackburn Rovers rout

The 5-0 scoreline means the Owls’ Leeds victory is the one anomaly in a run of four defeats in their last five Championship outings, a run that has seen them tumble from third place in the Championship, out of the play-off spots and into 10th.

But skipper Tom Lees believes his teammates needn’t look too far for inspiration of how to reverse their fortunes, picking out Nottingham Forest as a divisional rival who have turned their season around since a similarly humiliating home defeat against Wednesday in December.

Speaking ahead of an FA Cup clash at QPR that he described as an opportunity for players to push their case for inclusion in their forthcoming league matches, Lees accepted that while his side’s post-Christmas form leaves plenty to be desired, the precedent is there to turn things around fast.

Fourth-placed Forest are unbeaten in six since the 4-0 Owls defeat and a 2-1 defeat to relegation-threatened Huddersfield Town.

Asked about their league form Lees said: “I'm concerned and everybody wants to get that off their back.

“But equally I know that if we beat Wigan and then get a result the week after against Millwall, well, the prime example is looking at Forest. You look at what happened since we beat them, they've gone on and won three or four in a row.

“It can change. But we can't accept this, we have to do something about it sooner rather than later.

“It's just the way it goes. There are a few teams in a similar position, Leeds, West Brom, they're all doing it at the moment. But we've got to focus on ourselves.

“I'm just using that [Forest] as an example really, if you let it affect you too much you can write off your season.

“If you learn from it, if we learn from what happened on Saturday, we can use it in the next couple of games and turn it around.”