Wednesdayite.com welcome another new Owls Blogger to these pages.  Sky Sports fan zone SWFC blogger Carl Mullooly contributes his first blog to the site.

Carl's favourite football moment is the Owls vs Arsenal game from September 1998, when Paolo Di Canio pushed Paul Alcock and Lee Briscoe hit a stunning winner in the last minute.  But over to Carl in the build up ot the Palace game...

After almost ten, mainly disappointing months for Sheffield Wednesday, it all comes down to a 'play off' against Crystal Palace to decide who stays in the Championship and who faces trips to places like Bournemouth, Rochdale and Colchester.  No disrespect to any of those clubs, but I know where I'd rather be.

Leading up to the game, I'm mainly disappointed that there will be empty seats inside Hillsborough on Sunday despite the game being sold out.  I know the club has done all it can to try and avoid this scenario, but the police have said that they have concerns about safety around the stadium and for local residents and for that reason all seats cannot be sold.  I can't understand what difference of 2000 more fans would make; many of those people would have been parents with their children.  It saddens me that people will miss such a major game. 

On the positive side, at least we have a chance to save our season.  I, like many an Owl, watched West Brom hammer Crystal Palace for 70 minutes, only to be hanging on at the death and a goal line clearance kept Palace out and us in the hunt.  You could argue that ex-Owl Chris Brunt did more than some of our own players have on occasions to keep us in the division. 

In Football, you are always looking for omens and signs.  With the FA Cup, how many teams have had their 'name on the trophy'?  Things have been going wrong for both teams, and I'm struggling to find any sign that we may or may not stay up.  I think that Sunday is too close to call.  I'd probably say it was 60/40 in Palace's favour as they could take the draw, but then we have home advantage so you there is also that argument.  Either way, for the neutral it will be an enthralling game, for the Owls and Palace fans, it will be hell.

There has been talk that our Chairman's comments about Palace going into administration will act as a motivation for the game.  The Chairman did say that Palace shouldn't be in this league after going into administration twice.  If any Palace player needs that to motivate them on a day like Sunday, they don't deserve to be playing football.  Same for our players, if anybody is not willing to go out onto the pitch and put their body on the line, I'd rather they didn't turn up.  In all honesty our chairman probably has a point, as we could have gone into administration years ago and cleared our debts, but we are trying to do things the right way.  If you listen to the whole interview with Lee Strafford in context he's not having a go at the club, just the way it has been run as a business. 

It will be interesting to see what team Alan Irvine goes with on Sunday.  I'd like to Jeffers on the pitch, he has his critics, but I think he could have one rabbit in the hat.  Jermaine Johnson as always is a key player, if he is on form we have an excellent chance.  Etiene Esajas is somewhat of an enigma, but he proved that he has some ability at Bramall Lane.  Ultimately I think the key will be the performance of our back five.  We don't tend to score too many goals, so you feel that the defence will have to shut palace out if we are to win the game.

On a final note, I do firmly believe that anything can happen on Sunday.  Hillsborough will be bouncing, and we tend to play well on the last day of the season.  In a slightly more favourable position against Norwich two years ago we managed to stay in the division.  Whatever happens the fans will still support the club, if we do go down we will be gutted, but no one will have died.  We're all Wednesday, and we're all Wednesday till we die!

UTO
Carl.


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