Owls host table-toppers as top 6 chase continues

Last updated : 07 April 2017 By C. Morris

Sheffield Wednesday face Newcastle United at Hillsborough in the televised tea-time kick-off on Sky Sports on Saturday.

The Owls will be without midfielder Sam Hutchinson once again as the injury that he picked up at Barnsley last weekend will keep him on the sidelines having missed the midweek win at Rotherham. Fellow midfielder Kieran Lee is not quite ready to return from a long injury lay-off having undergone hip surgery and Almen Abdi is not expected to feature again this season.

Better news on the injury front could see the return of influential attacker Fernando Forestieri, who has missed the last 4 games. Gary Hooper played for the first time in 2017 on Tuesday and having come through that game unscathed he is expected to feature and having scored twice at the New York Stadium, Steven Fletcher will hope to keep his place in the starting line-up.

Newcastle main concern is the availability of midfielder Jack Colback. The former Sunderland man missed the midweek win over Burton Albion due to illness and had not returned to training by Friday morning.

Centre-back Chancel Mbemba featured for this year on Wednesday and will hope to keep his place as will attackers Ayoze Perez and Christian Atsu.

Wednesday have stopped the rot to an extent, picking up 4 points from their last 2 games having only taken 1 point from the 3 games before that but they have only won 1 of the last 4 matches at Hillsborough.

Newcastle have only suffered 1 defeat in their last 17 league matches and have not lost an away game since the beginning of January. They have won 13 times and drawn 4 of their 20 away games to date this season.

Wednesday enjoyed a deserved 1-0 win at St James' Park in December thanks to n Loovens first Owls goal. The last time the two teams met competitively at Hillsborough was Boxing Day 2009. That match ended in a 2-2 draw and the Owls have only managed to beat the Magpies once in their last 11 meetings at S6.