Danny Röhl makes Leeds United example as Sheffield Wednesday plot Burnley breach
Danny Röhl says Sheffield Wednesday are braced for the opportunity to become the first team to breach Burnley’s record-breaking defence on Friday evening.
In doing so, the Owls would become the first team in over 1,000 minutes to score against the Clarets and would chalk up another little marker - scoring their first goal of the season against one of the so-called ‘big four’ in this Championship season.
Wednesday are the fourth-highest scorers in this year’s table and have scored seven more goals than their Friday night rivals, but not once in their five matches played so far against the runaway automatic promotion-chasing quartet of Leeds United, Sheffield United, Burnley and Sunderland.
Röhl smiled when asked about the stat and took his side’s performance at Elland Road last month as a sign they can very much mix it with the big boys - a 3-0 defeat was roundly accepted as a harsh scoreline and came courtesy of momentary lapses in concentration, with Leeds scoring twice in the last five minutes.
“If you score often against these teams as well maybe we are in another position,” he told The Star. “It is part of the story, I watched the game on Monday, Leeds and Sunderland, it was high quality, big intensity, but I saw a team in Leeds that from our side - we were competitive. They needed two set pieces to score as well.
“We scored against West Brom away, we have scored more and more goals and it is the data area at the moment to have more clean sheets. This is always what we have to improve. I saw yesterday on the data that we are the second best team at scoring in the second half of games and the most goals after subs. This is all positive. But we must reduce our conceded goals. We worked hard again this week.”
It is in the other direction that Wednesday have struggled this season, their 50 goals shipped more generous than two of the teams in the bottom four. Set pieces continue to plague their efforts, as do individual errors. Crack that, Röhl suggested, and Wednesday have every chance at Turf Moor and beyond.
“We have to work to get the momentum of clean sheets back, Swansea and QPR were good steps forward,” he said. “We have to try this tomorrow as well. But we have our direction on how we want to play football. We have prepared something, but let's see.”