Sheffield Wednesday are travelling to Luton Town looking for their first league win since the 11th January, following their draw with local rivals Barnsley at the weekend.

The Owls are slipping further and further away from the promotion race by the week as they struggle to pick up wins or find any consistency in the league. Their slump in form has coincided with the lengthy injury layoff to Steven Fletcher, who suffered a major setback during Wednesday’s FA Cup triumph over Brighton early in January.

Since then, Wednesday have struggled massively to find any form in the league without their top scorer and acted very late in the January transfer window to rectify this with Connor Wickham and Josh Windass both joining on-loan late on deadline day from Crystal Palace and Wigan Athletic respectively.

The Owls have not lost since, with back-to-back draws against Millwall at home and then Barnsley at Oakwell last time out. Both might seem underwhelming at face value but there were positives that Wednesday looked more solid at the back than in recent weeks, despite the mistake from Cameron Dawson against the Tykes.

Up next is the trip to Kenilworth Road to face a struggling Luton Town side that are in desperate need of points to prevent their immediate drop to League One.

Monk was bold in his team selection at the weekend, but here is the team we expect him to field for the trip South to Luton…

With the 4-2-3-1 formation being Monk’s preferred setup before arriving at Hillsborough, he fell back on it against Barnsley as he struggled to field two strikers of the quality he requires to get the team to where they want to be.

In goal will most likely remain Cameron Dawson despite his calamitous mistake to hand Barnsley a point at Oakwell when his sliced clearance fell straight to Cauley Woodrow in midfield for him to curl into an empty net. 

Dawson has been typically dependable in the Owls goal and he has shown less mistake-prone tendencies than Keiren Westwood when he has had his stint in goal.

In front of him will be an unchanged back four with Dominic Iorfa, Tom Lees, Julian Borner, and Liam Palmer keeping their places. If not for that howler, this quartet would have kept their second clean sheet on the bounce and well worth it, so it would be harsh to drop any of them.

In front of the back four will be Barry Bannan and a return to the starting 11 for Kieran Lee, who came on for Joey Pelupessy on Saturday in the second half. Lee has struggled for fitness but it does appear that Monk is easing him back into being fully involved in the starting 11, to which he will most likely be ready on Wednesday night.

One change in the attacking midfield trident sees Kadeem Harris come back in for Fernando Forestieri, as Josh Windass and Alessio Da Cruz retain their spots. Windass scored on his debut for the Owls and took it well, reacting first to a loose ball to fire into the near post, while Da Cruz played the full 90 minutes and Monk showed no signs of replacing him, and instead brought off Forestieri.

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Harris comes back in on the basis that when Wednesday have been playing well this season, they have been very dangerous on the wings, with Harris being a very strong outlet to spring counter-attacks and get a good delivery into the box.

Up front will remain Connor Wickham who provides much more as an all-round lone-striker than Atdhe Nuhiu, who is still a presence, but doesn’t have the technique in possession that the Crystal Palace man has.