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Liam Palmer wants Sheffield Wednesday to get off to a strong start this season, insisting that they don’t want to be playing catch-up.

Wednesday went close last time out as they finished inside the League One top six only to be beaten by Sunderland in the play-offs, but they’ll be hoping for better end result this season after what has been a successful summer of recruitment.

The Owls take on Portsmouth this weekend as the 2022/23 season gets underway at Hillsborough, and their versatile defender wants them to hit the ground running.

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Speaking to the media, ‘Palms’ said, "You always want to get off to a good start. We have been handed a tough start but you have to play them all at some point… We are in good shape at the moment but if we can continue what we have been working on in preseason and hit the ground running against the so-called bigger teams then it will be good for us to play them out of the way early on.

“I think the standard of the league is going to go up again because of the teams who have come down. It will be tight and go to the wire again. We want to be in the hunt, and up there leading the pack rather than trying to come through and play catch-up.”

And with that in mind, Palmer and his side don’t want to risk a repeat of their play-off disappointment last season – though he doesn’t think that falling at that hurdle in 2021/22 will have any hold over them mentally in the campaign ahead.

“We were disappointed after Sunderland,” he admitted. “It is tough and we went away and reflected over the summer.

Liam Palmer says Sheffield Wednesday have big goals this season.

"We came back into preseason to work, and we addressed it as a squad and staff. We looked at what we can improve on and the teams that we should have picked up three points against but didn't.

"The disappointment is tough to take and we don't want to go through the play-offs this season - we want to shoot for number one.

"We know what it takes. It was fine margins last season with us finishing so few points off the top two places… We are working towards making no slip ups this season.”

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