International fixtures to give Owls a timely break?

Last updated : 31 August 2016 By C. Morris

With the top 2 divisions in England taking a week off for World Cup qualifiers the break may come as a relief for struggling Sheffield Wednesday.

The Owls, now among the favourites to challenge for promotion following last season's run to the play-off final, have picked up just 5 points from their opening 5 fixtures – exactly the same as they managed at the start of the 2015-16 campaign.

After initial promising results against Aston Villa and Norwich it has been a frustrating start for the Owls as key defensive injuries left them depleted and defeated at Burton then poor first-half finishing and sloppy 2nd half defending resulted in a surprise home defeat to Leeds.

On Saturday, Wednesday dominated large spells of the game at Brentford but spurned good chances before a rare Westwood error presented the home side with the lead. A further setback was to follow when new signing David Jones received a red card for two bookings but thankfully Sam Hutchinson rescued a valuable point for the Owls with a last-gasp leveller.

The early weeks of the season has seen plenty of transfer speculation at Hillsborough and with the transfer window closing during this international break then it may be a good time for the Owls to take a breather, work on integrating their quality new signings and look to get back to winning ways with back-to-back home games when the Championship action resumes.