Wigan Athletic striker Joe Garner has outlined that his side are looking to take advantage of Sheffield Wednesday’s turbulent schedule, along with their recent crushing home defeat.

Wigan face the Owls looking to bridge the gap between them and the sides currently safe from relegation in the Championship, as they sit second from bottom after 28 games. The Latics are currently five points adrift in the relegation zone and will be looking to get back to winning ways before the gap grows more.

Tonight, they face Garry Monk’s Sheffield Wednesday, who have had a very mixed January with impressive wins over Brighton and Leeds coupled with the disappointment of defeats at home to Hull City and then the 5-0 battering at the hands of Blackburn last time out in the Championship.

The victory over Brighton in the FA Cup set up a Fourth-Round tie with QPR, which they navigated with relative comfort on Friday night 2-1. The round of cup fixtures meant that a lot of Championship sides had the weekend off to recover, which Wigan did after their disappointment at Leicester.

However, Wednesday obviously had to travel to West London to face the R’s and then back up North to face the Latics at the DW Stadium tonight.

As quoted by the Sheffield Star, Wigan striker Joe Garner has commented on the meeting, highlighting their lack of a break in the last week. He stated: “We’ve had a really good week or so to prepare.

“The extra days give you the chance to work on things in that little bit more detail than usual.

“Our preparation is always very thorough, it’s just the gap in fixtures gives you a little bit longer to train.

“We’ve used the time to work on the things we know we need to improve on and hopefully that will show against Sheffield Wednesday.

“They had their FA Cup game against QPR at the weekend.

“But I imagine they’ll still be hurting from the Blackburn Rovers game – because it’s never nice to lose 5-0, especially at home.

“We’re hurting as well, we’re coming into this off the back of some bad results and we need the points.

“So we have to be ready for whatever they throw at us.”

Can you remember the scoreline of Wigan's first 12 games this season?

The verdict

It will most likely be a tight affair at the DW Stadium tonight with both sides in need of a win but knowing that they probably can’t afford to drop more points in the pursuit of their goals.

Wednesday know that they need a win to keep up their hopes of pushing for the play-offs while Wigan can’t let the gap to safety grow any more.

Garner is spot on in his analysis that Wednesday are definitely there to be got at after their trip to QPR on Friday night, but they still need to put in a strong home performance to get the result against a very resolute Garry Monk side.

Monk might have the make changes to keep his squad fresh and that might play into Garner’s and the Latics’ hands as they have had over a week to prepare for what the Owls are going to throw at them.