Sheffield Wednesday hero issues Moore orders in ‘honest’ play-off verdict

Mark Beevers admits he ‘would have liked’ Sheffield Wednesday to have better odds after losing 4-0 away to Peterborough United. But he does not feel the League One play-offs are over for Darren Moore’s team.

The Owls hero believes a packed Hillsborough at full voice can carry the South Yorkshire outfit in Thursday night’s second leg. But Beevers has admitted, via quotes by The Star, that Moore’s side face a ‘tall order’ to make it to Wembley. They have a mountain to climb after Friday’s 4-0 loss at Weston Homes Stadium.

Peterborough stunned Sheffield Wednesday with two goals in either half for a potentially insurmountable advantage. Jack Taylor (20’) first broke the deadlock midway through the first half before Joe Ward (36’) added to the scoreline. Kwame Poku (50’) and Jonson Clarke-Harris (82’) would later stretch their margin.

Mark Beevers issues an ‘honest’ verdict on the play-off picture

Sheffield Wednesday had entered the play-offs as the favourite having finished the regular season in third place. The Owls were also just two points shy of Ipswich Town for automatic promotion and five points off champions Plymouth Argyle. All the while Peterborough only secured a play-off spot by a point to Derby.

Only Ipswich (35) and Bolton Wanderers (36) also conceded fewer goals than Sheffield Wednesday (37) in the regular season. Now, former Owls defender and academy product Beevers claims Moore’s men must score early and score multiple goals before half-time if they are to overturn the Posh’s strong advantage.

“I would have liked it to be tighter, to be honest!” Beevers admitted. “Look, you never know. Looking at it I think Wednesday need to score a couple of early goals before half-time. It’s a tall order, of course it is. But if they get that early goal, they could potentially put them on the back foot.

“Hopefully, it’ll be a good night of football. Stranger things have happened. I’m sure there’ll be a massive crowd there, which can be intimidating for the away side. Hopefully, they can make it a good tie.”

Sheffield Wednesday can still beat Peterborough to reach Wembley

Moore should still retain some confidence that Sheffield Wednesday can get a result when Peterborough travel to Hillsborough for the second leg of their League One play-off semi-final. Only Plymouth (61) took more points than the Owls and Ipswich (54) during the regular season from their 23 games on home soil.

Sheffield Wednesday further only lost once and conceded just 16 goals to 49 scored at home this season. But Peterborough were also one of the better teams on the road having taken the fifth-most points. They claimed 34 of their 77 points away from home. Yet the Posh also lost 11 times to 11 wins from 23 games.

Conceding four goals at Weston Homes Stadium may be what hurts Sheffield Wednesday the most when they host Peterborough, though. The margin of their defeat will ensure Moore’s men must tackle the tie very aggressively. So, as Beevers suggests, the Owls’ fanbase making Hillsborough rock could prove key.

Kyle Archer is a Football Writer at GRV Media and works on a number of sites including HITC Football. Specialising in news and SEO content, Kyle covers clubs across the Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premiership. After graduating from Bournemouth University in 2016, he has more than seven years of experience in the industry writing for multiple publications in the UK.