Blackpool vs Sheff Wed Prediction: 100/30 for Owls to take the rocky road to victory

Steve Bruce’s return to football management with Blackpool quickly brings him up against one of his many, many former clubs on Tuesday when the Tangerines host Sheffield Wednesday at Bloomfield Road in the third round of the Carabao Cup (kick-off 19:45 BST, Sky Sports+).

The only list longer than Bruce’s managerial CV is the collection of former Wednesday players who have come back to haunt them over the years, and the Seasiders have plenty of those too. My Blackpool vs Sheff Wed predictions will have to take into account the law of the ex.

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One former Owl definitely misses out for Blackpool, with Ashley Fletcher serving the second game of a three-match ban for misconduct during the clash with Wycombe Wanderers in October.

Fletcher failed to score in a one-year loan spell at Hillsborough last season, registering 28 goalless games in total. Yet it took him only two minutes to score in his first competitive appearance for Blackpool in the 2-1 opening-day loss at Crawley Town.

Elkan Baggott still hasn’t played since suffering an injury in training in mid-August, while Ryan Finnigan might finally return to contention following a dead leg in the cup victory over Blackburn Rovers which set up this tie.

Albie Morgan still hasn’t played this season, while Andy Lyons’ ACL injury will keep him out for the forseeable.

Wednesday are expected to still be without Dominic Iorfa, who has missed the last two matches, but the shape of Danny Rohl’s defence will be intriguing given that he switched to a 3-4-3 formation for Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Queens Park Rangers.

Di’Shon Bernard and Jamal Lowe were both left out of the starting XI after returning from a busy international break with Jamaica, with the former coming off the bench in the final 20 minutes.

Lowe could start in this one as the German manager gets set to ring the changes once again. The 35-year-old made 11 changes for each of the previous cup wins at Hull City and Grimsby Town, and there may well be plenty of alterations again here.

That would open the door for the likes of Anthony Musaba, Djeidi Gassama, Pol Valentin, Svante Ingelsson, Charlie McNeill and Max Lowe to get game time having slipped down the pecking order of late. Goalkeeper Pierce Charles should come back in for James Beadle.

Blackpool vs Sheff Wed Odds

The bookies are split on this one in terms of the 90-minute win. The home side are 9/5 to follow up that cracking success against Championship high-fliers Blackburn with another scalp at home to a Wednesday side who have not found their mojo yet.

The Owls are 7/5 to return to winning ways following the weekend’s barely-believable period of injury-time in which they took the lead and then immediately conceded one of the most comical/amateurish/brilliant/poxy (delete as desired) goals you’re ever likely to witness.

The draw in 90 minutes is 23/10 (implying a 30.3% probability), with Blackpool 1/1 to win the tie by any means necessary and Wednesday 8/11 to progress to round four.

Sheff Wed to win and both teams to score @ 100/30

Alan Quinn, Richard Cresswell, John Sheridan, Steven Fletcher, Lucas Joao… Take your pick really, the list of ex-Wednesday players to register against the Owls could go on as long as you can bear to hear it.

That’s why I would 100% be tipping Fletcher to net were he available, because that’s just how these things work. There’s also the spectre of Jordan Rhodes, the £8 million Wednesday signing who was meant to be the missing piece in the jigsaw ahead of Premier League promotion.

In the end he scored 17 goals in 95 games, and in his first game after leaving for Huddersfield Town notched one of the penalties in a League Cup shoot-out which eliminated the Owls.

Hell, given the record, I’m tempted to tip former Wednesday goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell to launch a long goal-kick that catches the wind and goes over the head of current Owls understudy Pierce Charles. Or Steve Bruce himself to come on late in the game to nod home a replica of his famous 1993 title-changing winner for Manchester United against us.

But I’ve decided to err on the side of caution, or for ‘caution’ read ‘I’ve seen enough of Rhodes in recent years to guess it might not be him who stings us this time’.

I can see Wednesday conceding, because they just haven’t looked solid enough this season. Even when dominating for much of Saturday’s clash with QPR, they gave Rangers a number of look-ins before they eventually… well, you know what happened.

Anyway, I’m confident enough in Rohl getting the requisite performance out of the team to progress but not so convinced that they’ll do it without being brought down by the odd peg along the way.

So 100/30 for Wednesday to be breached but ultimately victorious inside the 90 minutes seems a tasty treat to me.

Football Odds

Michael Smith Anytime Goal Scorer @ 11/5

Smith hasn’t started a single Championship game this season. Indeed, his one featuring role in the first XI came at Hull in the first round of this competition and within 24 seconds he’d back-heeled the ball into the path of Charlie McNeill for the night’s opening goal.

The former Rotherham United man has been kept on in S6 because he has a little bit more than just a target-man element to his game. And while he’s not necessarily second-tier starting fodder at this point, he’s got plenty of goals in him against teams of Blackpool’s calibre. (Sorry Blackpool fans, but 36 strikes in his last two League One seasons tells its story.)

Smith will likely start, with some sort of combination of Gassama, Musaba, McNeill and Jamal Lowe behind him, so chances ought not be at a premium. I reckon 11/5 is a nice price at an implied probability of 31.3%.

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