Sheffield Wed. vs Brighton & Hove Albion - Fans & players have a special connection

Posted Friday, May 13, 2016 by PA

Carlos Carvalhal believes the special connection between the Sheffield Wednesday players and fans can help bring top-flight football back to Hillsborough.

The Portuguese head coach has guided the Owls to their highest league finish since they were relegated from the Premier League 16 years ago.

Wednesday host Brighton on Friday evening in the first leg of the Sky Bet Championship play-off semi-final, and Carvalhal has called for the sell-out crowd to contribute in making it a memorable occasion.

"It's a big challenge to our fans again," he said. "We cry, we smile, we have a big pain, we have a lot of happiness together during the season. Our fans follow us all the time in the good and bad moments.

"We have something in the air which is very positive between my players and my fans and it can be a very good night in Hillsborough tomorrow.

"The fans have had a long, long time without reasons to smile and we can feel the fans are enjoying all the games."

Sixth-placed Wednesday ended the league campaign 15 points and three places below the Seagulls.

The sides shared two goalless draws during the season, but Carvalhal is unconcerned by those statistics.

"I think first of all everything that happened in the past is not important," he added.

"Now is a new championship.

"It's important to talk how we are at this moment.

"We are in good shape, we are optimists, we are smiling.

"I haven't played play-offs (before), but I have played semi-finals and finals so it's nothing new to me. The games in the Europa League are similar. It's nothing new to most of my players, we have six, seven players that play with success in the play-offs in their careers. I think we will be ready."

Carvalhal, who had spells managing in Portugal, Greece and Turkey before taking over the Owls at the start of the season, said he is happy to start at home before travelling to the Amex Stadium for the return match on Monday.

Albion have never won at Hillsborough in 16 visits, drawing eight and losing eight.

Carvalhal continued: "We arrive here without any pressure and completely underdogs because the other teams did better than us.

"Brighton have a good team, with good organisation and a good coach. They did very well in the Championship, but we play good football.

"What we have achieved at this moment is absolutely amazing; collect 16, 17 new players, new team, new coach (in his) first year in the country.

"We are completely happy and it's why we are smiling but the season didn't finish yet and we have a new challenge now."

Carvalhal will welcome back his first-team regulars for the home leg.

Winger Ross Wallace also returns after completing a three-game ban following his red card against MK Dons on April 19, while midfielder Sam Hutchinson, who has been left out recently to avoid a potential suspension due to the number of yellow cards he has picked up, could feature.

Austrian striker Atdhe Nuhiu, who was substituted at Molineux with a knee strain, has trained all week and will be available for selection.

Meanwhile, Chris Hughton has backed his "distraught" Brighton side to lift themselves for the play-offs.

The Seagulls had been among the Championship pace setters all season but missed out on automatic promotion when they drew 1-1 at Middlesbrough on the final day.

They now face Sheffield Wednesday with Hughton confident they can still follow Burnley and Boro into the Premier League.

"The disappointment they showed on Saturday at Middlesbrough highlights how close we have come to automatic promotion," the Brighton boss said at his pre-match press conference.

"They are a very motivated squad and I would rather have seen a distraught changing room than anything different, and that's because you can see what it means to them.

"We didn't come away from the game with a loss and there were a lot of other positives the players gained.

"They were distraught but I think that's something they will use to their benefit.

"We now have to approach the Sheffield game the same as every other game this season.

"You have to have a similar approach to every game, it shouldn't make it any different just because it's a play-off game. Once you start doing things differently, it can knock you out of your rhythm.

"Our approach has been the same this week and we'll look to get the same response."