Why Sheffield Wednesday won't park the bus at Coventry City as another horror record looms

The Owls have battled against unprecedented circumstances this season, collecting only a solitary win back in September on their way to ceding the earliest relegation in EFL history. Failure to upset the odds and beat Coventry will ensure they are landed with the longest-ever winless run since the inception of the football league in 1888.

The Sky Blues have plenty to play for, knowing that a win and results elsewhere going their way would mean they seal promotion to the Premier League for the first time since 2001, having been to League Two and back in that time. For Wednesday, the focus of the remaining games is to build some form of momentum heading into the summer - and attempt to claw back the five points that separate them from an even keel.

“It would be a nice record to avoid but obviously the task is a very, very difficult one,” Owls boss Pedersen told The Star this week. “Honestly, we don't speak a lot about the record. We speak about how can we prepare in the best possible way against Coventry. How can we keep up to perform in the best possible way? How can we keep up our culture? How can we keep up when it's most difficult in the country on a Saturday and to keep up and maybe make a surprise?

“But first of all, how can we stay in the game? How can we compete in the game? How can we show ourselves from the best side, from the first moment in Coventry? Saturday at 12.30, this is where all our energy goes to.”

Though their results haven’t taken a major upturn, Wednesday’s efforts going forward have improved - in relative terms - in recent weeks. The Owls have shown more confidence in attack recently and head to Staffordshire on a run of earning an xG of one or more for three consecutive games for the first time this season. Pedersen agrees that his players are playing with more freedom.

“I think maybe there's a little bit more of freedom after the relegation,” he said. “We have been generally better in the verticality. We have been more vertical in our position. We have had more deep runs. We have had more passes to bypass our opponent. We have more situations where we play a teammate in speed. So this verticality and this intensity offensively have generally been better in our build-up but also from our offensive transition.”

Wednesday are 20/1 to take a win in Staffordshire and spoil the party of a Coventry side that beat them 5-0 at Hillsborough in October. That match saw Owls supporters storm the pitch in desperation as Dejphon Chansiri’s spiralling reign of ownership continued, an act Sky Blues manager Frank Lampard spoke about with a great deal of understanding after the game.

Despite the clear gulf in quality between the two squads, what is clear is that Wednesday will not set up to ‘park the bus’ against the title winners in-waiting. Pedersen said their analysis shows that Coventry are well able to pick teams that attempt to do so.

“I have the biggest respect for Frank,” the Dane said. “Of course, first as a player and then how he has grown as a manager. I'm happy to see all this success, what he has now, and he really, really deserves it. And how he has organised this Coventry team.

“One thing is to have a good individual player, but that does not mean you have a good team. But how he has organised this Coventry team, how he has developed this culture because they are working so hard. They have good players but they are working so hard and then they have a clear strategy for how they want to break down opponents

“They have a clear idea. If we stay in deep tomorrow, they have made 26 goals against deep standing opponents. But if we start to press them high, one thing is to have speed on the top line, but how they use the speed on the top line.

“You can see it's a very, very well organised team who is prepared for more or less everything. If we are going high, if we stay in deep. So, big, big respect for him and his team for what they have done and what they are doing right now.”