Sheffield Wednesday have been treading water since the departure of former manager, Steve Bruce, who left for Newcastle United in the Premier League during the summer, and although caretaker-manager Lee Bullen steered The Owls to 3 wins from their first 4 matches of the season, Wednesday have opted for Garry Monk instead.
Wins against Reading, Burnley and Luton Town in the first few weeks of the season looked to have made Bullen the favourite to take over the reigns at Hillsborough, but football is a fickle industry and recent back-to-back defeats to Preston North End and QPR persuaded the club to appoint former Birmingham City manager, Garry Monk, to fill the vacant post.
Monk hit the ground running with his new club too last weekend as he oversaw a 2-0 win away from home at hapless Huddersfield Town who already look destined for back-to-back relegations down to League One.
Wednesday will be keen to return to the kind of form that they showed under Bruce as The Owls have lost just 3 of their last 17 matches at Hillsborough in the Championship, and Garry Monk engineered a last-day survival 3-1 win against Fulham when he was in charge of Birmingham City last season.
Fulham have dropped down to a disappointing 11th place on the Championship league standings after they failed to win a third match on the trot in the second tier following a 1-1 draw at home with West Brom.
An earlier 2-1 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest has been followed by back-to-back draws with Cardiff City and the aforementioned West Brom, but Fulham manager, Scott Parker, will be seething after his side threw away two points in last week’s draw against The Baggies after his side were in full control of the game and held a 1-0 lead.
Fulham’s failure to convert their lion’s share of the possession into goals came back to bite them and they now face a tough task of getting something against a solid Sheffield Wednesday outfit at Hillsborough.
3 wins on the trot in the first few weeks of this new campaign seemingly confirmed Fulham’s pre-season automatic promotion favourites tag, but recent results have been in decline as The Cottagers have earned just 2 points from the last possible 9 on offer.
Fulham have won in their last 2 visits to Hillsborough but perhaps Sheffield Wednesday may have the last laugh here.