Sheffield Wednesday face fellow play-off contenders Fulham in the final game of the regular season at Hillsborough on Sunday.
Unless Fulham lose by a hatful of goals and 7th placed Leeds win by a similar margin, the London side are guaranteed to finish in 6th place and they cannot finish any higher even with a win.
Wednesday on the other hand can finish in either 3rd, 4th or 5th. If they match Huddersfield’s result they will finish at least 4th and if they do that and better Reading’s result they will finish 3rd. Failure to do both would see them slip to 5th. A top 4 finish is desirable as that would ensure that the 2nd leg of their play-off semi-final would be at home, though they Owls have won both of their play-off semi-final ties to date when playing away in the 2nd leg.
With keeping players fit for the play-offs in mind, Carlos Carvalhal may choose to rest a few and he does have the advantage of having a fairly deep squad by Championship standards. The likes of Liam Palmer, Vincent Sasso, Morgan Fox, Jose Semedo, Atdhe Nuhiu and Sam Winnall could all come into consideration.
With Fulham’s place in 6th virtually confirmed already regardless of the result, they too are likely to consider resting players. On-loan Derby striker Chris Martin has missed the last 3 matches due to suspension but is available for the match at Hillsborough and may get a run out to test his match fitness ahead of the play-offs.
The two sides come into the game as the two form sides in the Championship. Wednesday have won 6 in a row and have kept 3 clean sheets in the process. Another shut out tomorrow would see the club equal their clean sheet record of 17 for the 3rd season in a row.
Fulham have won 4 and drawn 1 of their last 6 and have been scoring goals for fun having netted 16 times in those 6 matches.
The two sides drew 1-1 at Craven Cottage back in November with the home side scoring in injury time to deny the Owls a win. The Londoners have only won once in their last nine visits to Hillsborough.