Important trio return as Sheffield Wednesday visit Stoke City

The Owls make the trip to the bet365 Stadium as they seek back-to-back victories for the first team this season, and face a Potters side that are desperate to return to winning ways after losing three games on the bounce and dropping down the Championship table.

But there will be three important players back available for this tie, all three of whom were forced to sit out the defeat to Plymouth Argyle last time out due to suspension. Wouter Burger and Daniel Johnson and former Sheffield United man, Enda Stevens, can now return to Alex Neil’s side.

They do, however, still have Ben Wilmot and Sead Haksabanovic out of action due to injury, and Neil admits that it’s not been the easiest of times given his selection issues over the course of the campaign.

Speaking to the media this week he said, “Naturally when you have all players fit and available then you’re in a better situation. That’s the same for any team. We’ve had players missing like Ben Wilmot, who has played every single match for me when he’s been fit. Mark Travers played all the games in goal too. Haksabanovic has been missing and Tye Campbell has missed large parts of the season too.

“But you could probably say that for every club. I think the only difference for us this season is that we’ve got so many new players who have come into the building at the same time, which is different to most clubs. And the stupid thing is that we’re three points off 14th. We are trying to keep a bit of perspective in that sense. It’s not as if we’re cut adrift, floundering at the bottom on our own.

“The games have had very little in them but no one will care about that, we just want our team to win and we’ll be doing our utmost to try to do that.”

Wednesday and Stoke lock horns at 3pm on Saturday in what will be their first meeting of the season.