Sheffield Wednesday: Barry Bannan launches defence of Darren Moore and insists 'We'll get promoted'

The midfield talisman, who committed his future to the club earlier this year, was asked ahead of the Owls’ clash at Accrington Stanley whether there is any doubt as to whether he made the right decision in sticking at Hillsborough given he could have moved to clubs higher in the league ladder.

Bannan was unequivocal and reaffirmed his belief the eighth-placed Wednesday will be a Championship club next season.

“Never has that ever come into my head,” he said. “I’m sitting here putting it all on the table saying we will be promoted this season. I still believe that.

“I have never questioned my decision to stay here. This club has been amazing for me since I signed here six or seven years ago when I needed to get regular football. This club gave me that.

“We obvious had a bad season last year and got relegated, so I’ve got a burning desire as the club captain to get the club back to where they belong. That will never change until I do.”

One of the figures to have faced criticism in recent weeks from some sections of the support is manager Darren Moore.

Bannan launched into a staunch defence of his boss and put it beyond any doubt that the players are behind him and his methods.

“That’s going to come,” Bannan said. “That’s football and it happens, if you don’t get results the players get hammered and the manager comes in for a bit of stick as well.

“At the end of the day, those are people’s opinions.

“We know as a group of people at this training ground, we’re all together with the manager, fighting for the manager and we’ll continue to do that.

“If that’s people’s opinions, everybody is entitled to one, but the manager is doing a very good job and I’m happy with him here.

“We’ll be fighting on Saturday and end this run of results that have been too many draws and turn them into wins. We need to shoot up the league and silence everybody that is speaking about this sort of thing.”

Several Wednesday players spoke early on in the campaign about a desire to win the league and while Bannan accepted things haven’t gone entirely to plan, he said a promotion charge is well within the club’s sights.

“It’s not been what we wanted,” he said. “Everybody you’ll ask here will say that because we’ve not performed to what we can do. Having said that, we’re still in and around it.

“We’ve got to keep going, we’ve had a lot of injuries recently and we have a lot of players coming back now that are going to play a big part in this squad going forward.

“We’re still aiming from promotion, we’ve still got that in our sights. There’s a long way to go this season and with people coming back it’s only going to help us going forward.”