YOU’RE CRUCIFYING ME HERE: Mowbray frustrated with officials in win over Sunderland (Getty Images)
By Lee Dover
Middlesbrough take on Sheffield Wednesday in Friday night’s live nPower Championship game at 7.45pm.
Boro are on an impressive eight-game unbeaten run in all competitions and will be top of the table – until Crystal Palace play Derby tomorrow – should they overcome the Owls who are looking for back-to-back away wins after beating Ipswich at the end of October.
Tony Mowbray’s side have seen off Hull City and Bolton Wanderers as well as great derby rivals Sunderland in the Capital One Cup in recent games but were held 0-0 by Nottingham Forest mid-week.
First-team coach Mark Proctor was deputising for Mowbray who was in bed with the flu and said afterwards:
We were playing against a very good Forest team who have some good players. We always knew it would be a tough game for us. All in all there were opportunities at either end and a draw was probably the right result.
Sheffield Wednesday are on 15 points – 14 points behind Boro and hovering over the Championship drop zone after a disastrous September.
It started brightly for The Owls, when they drew with Derby County and won against Birmingham City and Millwall in their opening three games but they then lost six on the bounce in all competitions.
Owls manager Dave Jones is staying upbeat even though his team lost 2-0 at home to Blackpool on Tuesday despite having plenty of chances in front of goal.
The encouraging thing for us is that against a very good side we have been in it for long periods.
But Wednesday will need to be more than ‘in it’this evening against a Middlesbrough side that have won their last three head-to-head clashes against them.
