Ryan Woods thinks there is no better time to get back to winning ways than with three points at Hillsborough on Saturday against Sheffield Wednesday. The Bees have only tasted victory once in the last seven and are now ten points off the sixth placed Owls ahead of Saturday’s encounter. Ryan thinks the big pitch at Hillsborough will suit the team and is targeting three points to draw closer to those Play-Off positions.
“Saturday is a game that you have to look forward to,” said Ryan. “I have never played there before so that is another thing that I am looking forward to. We need to get back to winning ways. It will be a tough test but we need to show people what we can do. They have got some big names for this league and we have to be wary of their attacking threat. We have enough in our team to be worrying them as well. We are good on big pitches because we play good expansive football and we have to make sure that we are on it now and show everybody what we can do. It will be massive to get three points on Saturday to see where we are as a level. We want to be beating these teams because we want to be around the Play-Offs. Our form hasn’t been good as of late and what better place to do it than Hillsborough.”
Last time out Ryan and his teammates suffered a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Brighton and Hove Albion and the former Shrewsbury Town player admits that the frustration at the result and performance on Friday has driven the players on this week.
“Training has been good,” said Ryan. “It was frustrating the way that things went against Brighton. We have tried to put that behind us, focus on the positives and look for the motivation out of it. I think we have done that this week. We need to work hard in our session tomorrow and take that into the game on Saturday.”
Ryan has struck up a central midfield partnership with Josh McEachran in recent weeks and the 22-year-old thinks the pair will only improve the more that they start together. With Lewis Macleod and Alan McCormack both coming back to full fitness Ryan knows that he will have to fight hard to keep his starting place.
“I like Josh McEachran, he is a good lad off the pitch and we play quite well together,” said Ryan. “We both like to get on the ball and try and make things happen for the team. We have shown that in a few games and not so well in others. Only time can tell to see how well we can do and I think that it will be good. Lewis Macleod is a good lad and he has been working really hard to get back to match fitness. He is a good player but when I signed here I said that I wanted to be a better player and there is no harm in having good competition for places. In that way it is quite personal because I want to be playing every week and I want that starting shirt so I need to be the best player that I can be.”
Bees Player subscribers can watch the full interview with Ryan below