Sheffield Wednesday looking to expose clear weakness in 'dangerous' Watford

The next three matches in Sheffield Wednesday’s diary take them into the final international break of the year and they won’t get it easy - a cursory look at the league table shows Watford, Norwich City and Sheffield United are all in the top eight of the Championship after 12 matches.

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The Hornets are first up at S6 this afternoon. They arrive in eighth position after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Blackburn Rovers at Vicarage Road. It’s a position that has been held together by home form - their record on the road has seen them claim just one win and five defeats in their six outings and is a weakness Wednesday will hope to deepen.

Speaking ahead of this afternoon’s Hillsborough clash, Wednesday boss Danny Röhl made reference to Watford’s away troubles and described the need for his players to remain on guard against a dangerous opponent - no matter the flow of the game.

“They have a great home performance, their away performance is not the greatest one,” Röhl told The Star. “It is a team with individual players that can decide a game, even the home games when you look back, like their last game, they won with a pen. Blackburn controlled the game for a long time. I watched the Middlesbrough game as well, they controlled their game too for a long time but then there were two moments and they won.

“This is dangerous against Watford. They come sometimes from nothing to get something and for this we have to be ready, we do not give them the small chances and we play on the front foot in the right direction to create pressure in the stadium with good energy.”

With Watford resting up in a week clear of cup commitments, Röhl heavily rotated his squad for Tuesday evening’s penalty shootout defeat at Brentford with several key players left to recover back home. “It was helpful for us to rotate the squad on Tuesday,” the Owls boss said. “You feel in training some players are back, fresh, hungry, lively. This is fantastic. We go with a starting 11 and then we know there will come a point to bring the next players in and they will help us bring the bring the game home hopefully.”