Di’Shon Bernard will miss Wednesday’s lunchtime game with Championship leaders West Brom at Hillsborough tomorrow.
The defender was controversially red-carded at Luton last weekend, receiving an automatic one-match ban, and manager Danny Rohl has confirmed that the club failed to get the decision overturned after an appeal to the FA.
Dominic Iorfa has been training with the first team this week after his lengthy injury lay-off and Rohl has to decide whether he is ready to return to the Wednesday defence, given that the West Brom challenge is the first of three games in the next week.
The defeat at Luton, followed by Preston’s draw on the following day, saw Wednesday drop to third from bottom of the Championship. However, boss Rohl is confident that his side will soon be back to winning ways, despite having taken just one point from our last five league games following the opening day victory over Plymouth.
We may well have had more to show from the recent 1-1 home draw with QPR and then the 2-1 defeat at Luton, late goals leading to just one point from these matches when we could have won both fixtures and Rohl is pleased with the improvement in those two games, saying: “It was very encouraging to see the big steps we have made after the defeat at Millwall, even though we didn’t get the points we deserved in the last two league games.
“It was fantastic for me to see how the players transferred all the things that we trained for onto the pitch at Luton. Until the red card for Di’Shon, Luton didn’t really have a shot on target. We performed well, defended well and had good attacking moments.
“We have been increasing our chances to win games again, we can see the development and I am convinced we will return to a good run.
“There is no question that we will come through this situation, I believe in everything we do and we are improving.”
West Brom come to Hillsborough looking to preserve an unbeaten start to their Championship season and Rohl said they are a strong side but added: “We are at home and have a big chance. We have to do a lot of things right but we are prepared and have worked hard for the game.”
*The kick off for the derby game with Sheff U at Bramall Lane on November 10, Remembrance Sunday, has been moved back 30 minutes and the match will now start at 12.30pm.