'Good place to play' - Oxford United boss makes 'flexible' Sheffield Wednesday observation

The Owls play host to Oxford on Saturday afternoon in their latest bid to end a long winless streak at Hillsborough, and they’ll also be keen to make up for throwing away a 2-0 lead away at Blackburn Rovers earlier in the week.

It remains to be seen how Danny Röhl will set them up, whether it be a back four or a back five, and which personnel he will go with. And that’s something that Rowett made mention of ahead of the tie - insisting that his side can bounce back from defeat to Queens Park Rangers on Wednesday.

“Every game is a little bit different,” he told the club’s YouTube channel. “I don’t think you can always play the same way in every game - you have to have a little bit of flexibility. Sheffield Wednesday are quite a flexible team, who play different formations and different ways within that formation… I’d expect us to step our game up on Saturday and beyond, and get the results that we need.”

Conflicting form home and away

The former Millwall boss also touched on the conflicting form of the two sides when it comes to home and away. Wednesday, of course, have been fantastic on the road this season but have struggled at home, whereas the U’s visit S6 having not won away from Kassam Stadium in 10 games. For both sides the last time they bucked that trend was on New Year’s Day.

Rowett went on to say, “You can flip it both ways. You can look at Sheffield Wednesday and their home form has not been as good as they would like, so at some point you’d think somebody is going to get a result that perhaps hasn’t been their norm. It has to be us, we have to go there and make sure we’ve got the right game plan. Make sure that we go there and compete in a way that we know we can…

“It’s a good place to play football, it’s a good time of the season to go and play football there. We’ve got to make sure that we perform as well as we can.”

The two sides lock horns at 3pm on Saturday afternoon for what is the third to last home game of the season for Wednesday, and Röhl will be desperate to try and end the season on a high at Hillsborough after a very rough period on their own patch.