Sheffield Wednesday confirm Stoke City pre-season friendly - all the details
The Owls have added another pre-season friendly to their schedule
Sheffield Wednesday will play Stoke City as part of their European pre-season tour, it has been confirmed.
The Owls are in Hungary this week for five days before travelling to Austria at the weekend where they will face the Championship side behind-closed doors on Saturday, July 25 at 2pm with two 70-minute halves. The Star’s Alex Miller will bring you the very best coverage from across the week.
Stoke will be the the third Championship outfit that Wednesday will have faced so far this pre-season, having lost 3-0 to West Brom and beaten Preston North End 3-2. Henrik Pedersen’s men also have friendlies against Accrington Stanley and Oldham Athletic before they host Bolton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup first round and then visit Leyton Orient in the League One opener.
The game against Preston involved two-halves of 60 minutes with Wednesday’s goals coming from Jamal Lowe, Louie Barry and Reece Johnson. It was effectively two 60-minute matches with both sides selecting different line-ups at the halfway point.
“It was fantastic,” Pedersen said. “One thing is to win, and we love to win, but the performance behind this win [was good].
“What we have worked on at St George’s and what we have done this week, first of all, [is that] we look very fit and we were very, very well organised defensively. We had a lot of intensity in our pressing, and we had a lot of situations where we won the ball. We also had some good transitions, and we scored two goals after winning the ball back.
"The next level is to be more vertical when we win the ball. Offensively, for a big part of the first game, which was 60 minutes, we were very dominant. But having the ball and then speeding up play is the next level.
"When Barry [Bannan] had an open body, how can we make more deep runs and opposite runs so we can speed up the game more? But again, the balance was really good, so when we had less of the ball, we were strong in the counter-press.
"So, in general, it was a very balanced performance and a very, very strong culture. To score two goals and not concede in the first 60 minutes was strong."
Supporters will be able to watch the game against Stoke via iFollow for £5. Current monthly video subscribers will receive the live stream inclusive of their package, while audio subscribers have the option of upgrading to video.