Sheffield Wednesday must learn from Bilal El Khannouss masterclass to stop Stoke City’s key man

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It was a fairly impressive start to the season for Sheffield Wednesday despite losing to Leicester City on Sunday, but they have to learn a valuable lesson from that game ahead of the visit of Stoke City.

With the odds stacked firmly against them, Sheffield Wednesday managed to surprise us all and put up a brave fight against recently relegated Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.

The Owls even had the lead against Marti Cifuentes’ side for a long time, but collapsed in the final stages of the game after going down to ten men with Barry Bannan picking up a red card.

One of the key factors in that win for Leicester City was Bilal El Khannouss, who was given far too much freedom and space to influence the game by Henrik Pedersen’s men.

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Sheffield Wednesday were destroyed by Bilal El Khannouss, Jamie Donley can do the same

It was a game of two halves on Sunday, with the Owls dominating the first half before Leicester came out of the traps in the second. More than anything, the fact that the likes of Abdul Fatawu, Stephy Mavididi, and El Khannouss came alive was the deciding factor in that match.

El Khannous was the standout, with two assists and four key passes to unlock the Owls defence and punish them for lapses in concentration.

The playmaker created three big chances, completed all three of his dribbles, while also registering five shots at goal, three of which were blocked and one being firmly on target.

With the Moroccan finding success by floating around the attacking third and penetrating areas of weakness for the Owls, Pedersen must surely be fearful of Jamie Donley having a similar impact for Stoke City on Saturday at Hillsborough.

Donley joined Stoke on loan last week, and hit the ground running in the Potters’ 3-1 win over Derby County, bagging an assist on his debut.

As we saw during his loan spell last season at Leyton Orient, where Donley ended registering more assists than anyone in League One, the Spurs youngster is more than capable of picking up the ball in pockets of space behind the attacking line and either finding a killer pass or generating space by bursting forward with the ball at his feet.

Donley has told Mark Robins he wants to play as the 10 behind the strikers, and if he does use him there, we could see Sheffield Wednesday ripped to pieces once again this weekend.

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How can Sheffield Wednesday stop Jamie Donley?

Henrik Pedersen lined up with a 3-5-2 formation (or 5-3-2, depending on the passage of play) on Sunday, and there’s no reason to believe he will shift from that for the visit of Stoke City.

The Potters, meanwhile, set up in a 4-2-3-1 shape, and if Donley does play in that central role behind the striker, it absolutely has to be the responsibility of one of the three Wednesday centre-halves to step out and make the youngster their responsibility.

At the weekend, we saw Gabriel Otegbayo lose his man at a set-piece, with Wout Faes punishing the young defender with the winning goal. With this in mind, it would probably be best not to put Otegbayo on man-marking duties for Donley.

Instead, it would make more sense to get Max Lowe, who just decided he will stay at Wednesday, to be the one stepping out and dealing with Donley. Lowe is a more experienced player with far better discipline and awareness than Otegbayo, and will be far more capable of containing the Tottenham loanee.