[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

The wins keep coming for Albion, who presently stand on the verge of four consecutive away victories for the first time since December 2019. Hillsborough is the destination for Saturday's early kick-off, where - despite masterminding a great escape turnaround for Wednesday last season that Carlos Corberan would have been proud of - Danny Röhl has overseen a rougher start to the new campaign than the 4-0 opening day win against Plymouth, or indeed the months of positive results that preceded it, might have suggested. Switching to a back five in the last fortnight has resulted in some improvement, though the absence of Di'Shon Bernard (who was dismissed somewhat dubiously for an alleged handball against Luton, and failed in his appeal against suspension) weakens the Owls defence for this encounter, and Röhl will have to choose between plugging the gap with Michael Ihiekwe, the returning Dominic Iorfa or youth prospect Gabriel Otegbayo, who performed well against Blackpool in the League Cup. Ex-Villa man Barry Bannan has supplied the last couple of league goals for Wednesday, and will be one for us to watch out for; meanwhile, Albion are still missing Jayson Molumby to a calf injury, so Uros Racic will be likely to deputise in the middle of the park again. It's no secret that our goal threat will come from Tom Fellows teeing up Josh Maja, who's been prolific on the road so far and could become the first Albion player to find the net in four consecutive away matches since Diomansy Kamara in February 2007 if he scores in this one; keeping that pair quiet will therefore be integral to Wednesday's chances of success.

I do think the Owls are liable to click into gear at some point soon, and our 3-0 defeat at Hillsborough back in April is a reminder that with the home crowd behind them, they're more than capable of doing it against us. But on paper we go to the Steel City as favourites, and have to look to live up to that label with a point or three if we can turn in another solid performance. Should we slip up, the visit of mid-table Middlesbrough to the Hawthorns on Tuesday evening for our first mid-week league fixture of the campaign will be an opportunity to make instant amends, or to consolidate our lead if we return from Hillsborough with the points at the weekend.

[drewks]

.... Mowatt on the bench

---

Oh deary me; 2 down after 20-odd mins

[4evaabaggie]

Listened partly on the radio, WM 95.6, they made a comment that Palmer has never kept four clean sheets on the bounce for Albion. Get out of the car, go in the house and hey presto, 1-0 Wednesday.
Now 2-0. Our unbeaten run may be coming to an end.
Come on Albion. We can win 3-2.

[Baggie_One]

3-2 the wrong way around

[drewks]

Listened partly on the radio, WM 95.6, they made a comment that Palmer has never kept four clean sheets on the bounce for Albion. Get out of the car, go in the house and hey presto, 1-0 Wednesday.
Now 2-0. Our unbeaten run may be coming to an end.
Come on Albion. We can win 3-2.

Great comeback - 2 each 6mins to go....
.... your 3-2 on, 4eva??

AAAGHH... 3-2 all right... but...!!

[4evaabaggie]

Nearly so very nearly.

Old adage .. your most vulnerable when you've just scored.

Now will see how we recover from a defeat.

Albion til I die.

[Slick_Footwork]

It was inevitable our unbeaten run would come to an end eventually. Especially when we've stuck with the same XI that started the season and it's not our best side.

That said, the nature of today's defeat was tough to take.

The first half was a sorry performance, which highly resembled what we served up regularly away from home last season.

Corberan has done a great job to date, which is starting to get noticed in the press nationally now. However, today's game proved he's not the finished article yet.

Sheffield Wednesday got their tactics right first half and we didn't have an answer. They knew they could let our centre halves have the ball and restrict the space and we simply couldn't get out. Rather that trying to switch it up and play a bit longer and win 2nd balls, we continued to tip tap about, taking unnecessary risks without ever looking capable of playing through them.

The fact we conceded poor goals just compounded the performance. We made a poor Wednesday side look good.

Second half we improved with Mowatt introduced, as we had someone willing to drop deep and play. In addition, Wednesday couldn't keep up the running to close all the space.

Not sure why Mowatt was dropped to be honest. I heard he didn't train all last week, but he looked fit when he came on.

To work that hard to get the 2 goals back and then concede straight away is just criminally unprofessional. I appreciate we wanted a win, but you have to defend first. A draw would've been a decent result considering how woeful we were first half.

On the plus side, Diangana and Johnston have probably played their way into the starting XI now, which IMO is probably our best side.

However, other teams will watch that first half performance and do the same thing Wednesday did. If we continue to keep trying to play from the back, with Palmer, Bartley and Ajayi, we will come a cropper. To prove he's top class, Corberan needs a plan B and he needs to improve us on the road. We've got a real quality squad and we really shouldn't be farming out performances like that again.

[Stairs]

An Albion fan collapsed in the stadium and has died. Really sad when this happens to someone.

Heart goes out to his family RIP

[St Charles Owl]

An Albion fan collapsed in the stadium and has died. Really sad when this happens to someone.

Heart goes out to his family RIP

Just seen this on a Wednesday site, very sad!!

RIP.

[Slick_Footwork]

Poor performance last night. I thought Mowatt and Racic played well in the middle, but otherwise we were poor. No creativity in that attacking trio of Grant, Swift and Wallace.

Not sure why Corberan dropped Fellows. I appreciate Wallace is his captain and he wants to keep everyone happy, but it doesn't make sense to drop form players...

It also makes little sense why Johnston is on the bench when Grant and Swift are starting...

As far as luxury players go, I can't really think of any that I've seen at the club worse than John Swift. He's pedestrian, moves the ball too slowly, rarely sees a creative pass and doesn't pass accurately on the rare occasions he does see it. He might be okay in a deeper role if he had a tackle in him, unfortunately he's a fairy with zero defensive awareness. If we're serious about a promotion push, we can't keep carrying him.

I accept Grady might've started in that role had he not been injured (again). But we still have Dobbin and Johnston on the bench who are better options. I'd even sooner see Molumby as an extra body in the centre than Swift. At least he will put a foot in and add energy.

For the first time to date, I see criticism of Corberan on the horizon if we do not improve in the next couple of games. We have a bench full of good footballers, but we're not using them correctly.