Keith Gillespie backs Sheffield Wednesday to repeat impressive form from past two seasons despite shaky start to 2017/18.
Sheffield Wednesday are currently 13th in the Championship table after securing their first league win of the new season with a 1-0 victory at Fulham at the weekend.
However, they are still seven points off leaders Cardiff City and Ipswich Town after a solid, but unremarkable, start for a team that has finished in the playoffs for the past two years.
Carlos Carvalhal, manager of Sheffield Wednesday.
However, former winger Keith Gillespie – who played for the likes of Manchester United, Newcastle United and Owls’ rivals Sheffield United during a varied career – has pointed to a poor beginning to 2016/17 and thinks the south Yorkshire club will be fighting near the top of the table again come May.
“I think it’s been disappointing the last two seasons coming so close,” said Gillespie as he appeared as a pundit on Channel 5’s Championship programme. “So I think there’s a lot of expectancy.
“If you look at the spine of the team – Tommy Lees, Barry Bannan, Steven Fletcher – if you’ve got that going right down the middle of your team you’re going to be competitive.
“They’ll certainly be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. Four points from four games last season – this season they’ve got five.”
That statistic should come as encouragement to Wednesday fans, who saw an opening defeat at Preston North End followed up by successive home draws to QPR and Sunderland.
Yet under head coach Carlos Carvalhal they have generally started slowly in the second tier of English football, with them also having five points after four games in 2015/16 – the Portuguese’s first season in charge.
If Gillespie is right then the likes of Lees, Bannan and Fletcher – who all played a key role in the Sheffield team finishing fourth last term – will be the reason Carvalhal’s men repeat the feat for a third year running this time around.
Keith Gillespie of the Manchester United Legends crosses the ball during the PFA Aussie Legends match.
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