Blackburn Rovers vs Sheffield Wednesday: Betting Odds & Prediction
(Featured image: Alamy Images)
The spotlight shifts to the lower rungs of the Championship ladder this Sunday lunchtime as Blackburn Rovers welcome Sheffield Wednesday to Ewood Park.
With just three games remaining this season, time is running out for both sides to secure their Championship survival. The match kicks off at 12:30pm UK time.
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Blackburn Rovers
Blackburn eased their relegation worries with a surprise 1-0 victory against Leeds at Elland Road last Saturday. It came as a welcome relief for Rovers’ fans who had seen their side thrashed 5-0 by Bristol City only three days earlier. It gives John Eustace’s men a bit of breathing space and one more victory should be enough to see them safe.
Wins have been very hard to come by for Rovers, though; the victory over Leeds was only their third league success of 2024 and only the second since John Eustace took over the reins in February. Worryingly, they’ve also not recorded back-to-back wins in all competitions since November.
If it hadn’t been for Sammie Szmodics’ golden touch in front of goal this season, who knows where Blackburn would be right now. The Irishman, who tops the Championship goalscoring chart, netted his 24th league goal of the season when grabbing the winner against Leeds. Szmodics has scored 42% of Rovers’ league goals this season and with his six FA Cup goals, means he’s the first Blackburn player to score 30+ in a season since Alan Shearer. Amazingly, you have to go back to February 24th for the last time a player apart from Szmodics netted for Rovers. The goals have dried up dramatically of late. The 5-1 win against Sunderland at the start of April papered over the cracks, as they’ve failed to score in four of their last six games and have netted on average only 0.66 goals a game at home in their previous six home matches.
A concern for Blackburn is that, including this Sunday’s clash, two of their three remaining games are at Ewood Park. Both their recent successes came on the road. Rovers haven’t won a game on home turf since beating Stoke on February 10th, a day after Jon Dahl Tomasson was given the sack. Blackburn’s 0-0 against Southampton in their last home encounter was actually a positive, as they hadn’t kept a clean sheet at Ewood Park for 17 games prior to that, since beating Cardiff 1-0 in October. That being said, Rovers don’t actually concede too many at home though, with only an average of 0.85 goals per game scored against them in their last 7 matches at Ewood Park.
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Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield Wednesday secured back-to-back stalemates with a 1-1 draw against relegation rivals Stoke at Hillsborough on Saturday, which also saw them stretch their unbeaten run to three matches. However, they still remain in the bottom three and it’s wins, not draws, that they desperately need now.
Unfortunately, Wednesday’s wins have dried up at the worst possible time. Since recording four wins on the bounce at the end of February/beginning of March, they’ve only won one of their last seven encounters in the league, with a points per game average of just 0.85 during that period. Their season average is 1.02.
It's not all doom and gloom for the Owls though if you break down some of those results. They are actually unbeaten in their last 8 matches against teams in the bottom half of the table, winning six of those matches. It’s games against the better sides where they’ve struggled, losing four of their previous five against teams in the top half of the Championship standings. And Blackburn definitely aren’t anywhere near the top half of the table. Further in-depth analysis of Sheffield Wednesday’s most recent games against lower league opposition, shows they’ve only conceded 3 goals during those 8 encounters.
Prediction
Sheffield Wednesday ran out 3-1 victors when they hosted Blackburn in December and the onus is on the Owls to push for the points at Ewood Park with their Championship status very much hanging in the balance. There have been under 2.5 match goals scored in all six of Blackburn’s previous home matches and I’m expecting another cagey affair.
Rovers won’t be too perturbed with a draw, but they’ve found it hard keeping teams under wraps at Ewood Park this season. They have the lowest home clean sheet percentage (10%) in the Championship and I can’t see them denying Sheffield Wednesday for the full 90 minutes.