Sheffield Wednesday travel to table topping Newcastle United on Monday evening as they look to maintain their position in the top 6 of a highly competitive Championship season.
The Owls will welcome back influential attacker Fernando Forestieri following the completion of his 3-match ban. The return of the former Watford forward will be a big boost as although the Owls have taken 6 points from the 3 games he has missed they have struggled to break the opposition down and create clear cut chances in those games.
Carlos Carvalhal has injury concerns over a number of his players with the likes of Barry Bannan, Kieran Lee and Almen Abdi carrying knocks that will be assessed before the fixture. Will Buckley and Gary Hooper are not yet ready to return to the squad.
Newcastle have few injury issues to concern them but they will be without midfielder Jonjo Shelvey after the club confirmed they will not appeal his 5-match suspension for racist abuse which will commence with this fixture.
Former Hull midfielder Mo Diame is likely to play in Shelvey's absence and he was the Owls nemesis at Wembley back in May, scoring the only goal in the play-off final. Former Crystal Palace striker Dwight Gayle will be the main threat as he is the runaway top scorer in the Championship having bagged 17 league goals already.
Wednesday come into the game on the back of 2 home wins though they were beaten at Reading in their last away fixture and have only won 3 of 11 away games so far though they have only been beaten 4 times on the road.
Newcastle have won their last 3 matches but have not been invincible at home, winning 7 and losing 3 of their 10 matches to date.
Wednesday won 1-0 in the League Cup on their last visit to St James' Park last season but have only won once in their last 9 visits in the league and suffered a humiliating 8-0 defeat the list time this fixture was held live on Sky Sports in 1999.