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…
It's that time of year - the EFL play-offs are here and there is a cracker lined up between Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday this Friday.
Both big clubs looking to gain promotion from League One back up to where they feel they belong, the two legs between Alex Neil's and Darren Moore's sides should be fascinating to watch.
Sunderland have the home advantage for the first tie, with Friday's match taking place at the Stadium of Light, and the second leg at Hillsborough next Monday.
With that in mind, we asked FLW's Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit James Mappin whether or not he thought the Owls could win away at Sunderland on Friday night.
"Yeah, of course I think that we can beat Sunderland on Friday," James told FLW.
"When you look at the form, all four sides in the play-offs currently are the top four sides when you look at the form over the last 10 games."
"Sunderland are top, I think we're third just a couple of points behind, so yeah, we're going to into Friday's game in a confident mood."
"I mean their home form is excellent, just like us as well. So they're going to be equally as confident. But yeah, I think we've got enough to to overturn them."
"The likes of Barry Bannan as long as he's fit and we've got Lee Gregory who has scored eight goals in eight games. Over the course of the season, we've had 20 different goalscorers and not many teams can say that. So yeah, I'm going into Friday in a confident mood."
"The game's not won on Friday. We all know that obviously it's 180 minutes over the two legs but certainly if we could take a lead going into the home leg that would be fantastic."
The Verdict
Given how both teams ended the season this is going to be a great tie over the two legs in the play-off semi-finals.
Given they are at home, Sunderland should really be looking to win the match and take a lead away to Hillsborough in the second leg.
Meanwhile, a draw would probably be a good result for Darren Moore's side to take back home, but a win would be an even greater result.
It certainly should be an exciting clash between the two sides.