Sunderland vs Sheff Wed Prediction: 8/1 chance Owls come home with a wet sail

So here we are. The final day of the Championship season. And – miraculously, given how far adrift they were cut at one stage – Sheffield Wednesday arrive at Sunderland on Saturday (kick-off 12:30 BST) needing a single point to be assured of second-tier football in 2024-25.

Even this particular Owl, having watched every last moment of the remarkable revival under Danny Rohl, can barely believe the turnaround. But these Sunderland vs Sheffield Wednesday predictions are compiled not just by a Rohl acolyte but also somebody whose heart has been broken by this lot more than once in the past…

Team news

Sunderland’s interim head coach Mike Dodds will still be without Dan Neil, Niall Huggins, Dennis Cirkin, Nazariy Rusyn and Jenson Seelt going into the final game of a tumultuous 2023-24 season which has seen the Black Cats fade away amid managerial changes which spelt the end of Tony Mowbray and then Mick Beale in quick succession.

For Wednesday, Ian Poveda has trained this week having missed the last four matches with a hamstring injury suffered in the 2-0 win at QPR, since when the Owls have remained unbeaten and picked up a further eight points in their stirring battle for survival.

Michael Ihiekwe could be back in the picture having missed the 3-0 win over West Bromwich Albion last week with a muscle strain picked up in the 3-1 victory at Blackburn Rovers which preceded it.

Rohl has not been scared of making changes to winning teams, but little should differ from the starting XI which stunned Albion, with the 35-year-old insisting his side will take the game to Sunderland despite only needing to draw to secure safety.

“[We need] to play with the same intensity as the last weeks, to be ready for this fight,” he told his pre-match press conference. “It’s a big, big opportunity, we’ve worked hard to come to such a point, and now you could look at the table and go into the last game thinking ‘It could be easy’, but no. I’m sure it will be a tough one and we have to prepare to make the final step now.

“The focus in on our performance, that we perform well, and I don’t look to the result we need, we just go there, like last the last games, to win the game and show a good performance. That’s the best way to be ready for this last game.”

Match odds

There’s no splitting the two sides, with both the home and away win priced at 6/4, with the draw Wednesday are craving being an 11/5 shot. Both teams to score? That’s available at 8/11.

Only Sheff Wed to score @ 7/2

Be still, my rapidly thumping heart. Any Wednesday fan whose smart watch has recorded anything under 80 beats-per-minute on its heart rate monitor lately has either taken the thing off their wrist or has ice running through their veins.

At this stage it seems as though most of the hard work is done, but we still can’t wait for 12:30 Saturday to come around so we can get this torture over with. Survival is teasing us right now, it’s so close we could touch it.

It’s normally in such scenarios that Wednesday make life hard for themselves. The failed relegation battles of 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2021 are examples of the Owls taking things into their own hands and then chucking it all away.

But this one should… SHOULD… be different, with the momentum built in recent weeks signalling that Wednesday are ready to complete the greatest of escapes having been 12 points adrift of the dotted line at one point.

It helps that Sunderland have scored one goal in five, with beach towels firmly placed on sun loungers already. Their performances have variously lacked heart, cutting edge, or both. So if Wednesday get the lead, they should have enough to see it out to the sound of unbridled ecstasy in the away end.

Sheff Wed to win both halves @ 8/1

Hell, why not double down? Of Wednesday’s 14 wins under Rohl, they have won both halves only three times, but they have all come at critical moments.

The first was when they had fallen 12 adrift of safety in December and had a record of one win in 18, beating Blackburn Rovers 3-1 to start this incredible renaissance. They then also won both halves in beating Birmingham City in February to buck a four-game run without victory which was book-ended by 4-0 losses at Southampton and Huddersfield Town

And last week they succeeded either side of half-time to beat West Brom with a bit to spare, and you have to believe that an advantage at the interval on Saturday could spur them on to get the job done after the break.

The odds of 8/1 imply an 11.1% probability, but even this oft-scarred Wednesdayite believes this one could well be on.

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