Sheffield Wednesday aims to achieve an unexpected Championship double when they host Portsmouth at Hillsborough this Saturday at 15:00 GMT.
The Owls are currently at the bottom of the league, having secured only one victory this season—a 2-0 win at Fratton Park back in September.
Due to a points deduction and a poor goal difference, they find themselves effectively 33 points adrift of safety, with Portsmouth, in 21st place, being the nearest target.
Portsmouth has struggled recently, earning just one point from their last six away matches and failing to score in four of those outings.
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Sheffield Wednesday is unbeaten in their last eight league meetings with Portsmouth (W5 D3), with their last loss to them occurring back in November 2002 (3-1).
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Portsmouth has won only once in their last six league trips to Hillsborough (W2 D3), their most recent defeat being a 4-1 loss in League One in April 2022.
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Sheffield Wednesday has managed just one win in their last 27 league matches (D10 L16), that lone victory coming against Portsmouth earlier this season. The last time a second-tier team won their first two matches of a season against the same opponent was in 1974/75, when Portsmouth defeated Nottingham Forest.
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Portsmouth has allowed 15 goals from set pieces this Championship season, making them the second-worst in this regard, just behind Sheffield Wednesday, who have conceded 17. Notably, all four goals conceded against Arsenal in their FA Cup third-round loss were from set pieces.
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Sheffield Wednesday has not won in 19 consecutive Championship matches. Historically, only four teams have gone over 20 games without a win in a season, including Darwen (27 games in 1898-99), Barnsley (23 in 1952-53), Cambridge United (31 in 1983-84), and Rotherham (20 in 2004-05).
[BBC]