This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Sheffield Wednesday will be hoping to make a positive start to the 2022/23 campaign when they face Portsmouth at Hillsborough tomorrow.
Having suffered a narrow defeat in the play-offs earlier this year, it will be interesting whether the Owls will be able to maintain a push for automatic promotion in the new term.
Wednesday manager Darren Moore has decided to alter his squad ahead of the new season by drafting in a host of fresh faces.
Reece James, Tyreeq Bakinson, David Stockdale, Ben Heneghan, Michael Ihiekwe, Will Vaulks, Michael Smith and Akin Famewo will all be looking to make an impact in the third-tier for the Owls after sealing moves to the club this summer.
Set to face a Pompey outfit this weekend who have also signed a number of players in the current transfer window, the Owls know that they will need to be at their best in order to seal all three points in this particular fixture.
Ahead of Saturday's showdown, FLW's Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit James Mappin has admitted that whilst he expects it to be a difficult game, he believes that the club will secure a 3-1 victory.
Speaking to FLW, Mappin said: "It's going to be a tough opening game of the season.
"Obviously Portsmouth last game of the season last year, it was a 4-1 win.
"If you look at the side that played that game, it's different.
"There's no [Sam] Hutchinson, Jordan [Storey], no Saido Berahino and no Massimo Luongo either but I do think we've recruited quite well and strengthened.
"We've got some tall centre-backs in Heneghan and Ihiekwe who will probably start.
"We are backed by probably near on 30,000 Wednesdayites at Hillsborough for the opening game.
"I can see us turning Portsmouth over, probably looking at a 3-1 [win], quite a fairly convincing victory although it will probably still be quite a difficult game."