Hardie's Sheffield Wednesday Preview

Ahead of Argyle’s trip to Sheffield Wednesday this weekend, where the top two teams in Sky bet League One will meet, Ryan Hardie is feeling confident.

No change, there, really. Hardie is a confident person in general, but in the best, level-headed sort of way.

In no way did he underplay the importance of Saturday’s fixture, nor underestimate Argyle’s opponents. Wednesday are unbeaten in the 21 fixtures, in all competitions, they have played since Argyle won the reverse fixture at Home Park in October.

The game at Hillsborough will see 3,700 travelling members of the Green Army make the Pilgrimage to South Yorkshire, and the occasion will mimic when Argyle met fellow promotion contenders Ipswich Town recently.

Hardie’s message, as much as anything, was Argyle to take the game in their stride and continue the preparation and performance that has steered to them to the division’s summit as the conclusion to the season looms just three months away.

“We are looking at every game as a cup final,” said Ryan. “This one is big, but so are the next 17 or whatever it is in the league.

“This one is a massive game for us. You just look at the numbers of travelling fans. It's going to be a good one. It's brilliant. That's back-to-back away games we'll have been in front of 30,000. It’s one that we certainly look forward to and as we’ve shown we’ll take the game to anybody.

“We'll do the same as we do for every game with prep. It's important that if we can't win the games, then we don't lose them, against the teams around us, certainly.  

“The results against the top ten are second to none. We’ve done the opposite to last year, where we never won the big games. It's massively important that we all do our jobs right. If we can work as hard as we can, then hopefully it'll be a good result.”

In the aforementioned game against Ipswich, Hardie missed a very good chance to score with the game at 0-0. Undeterred, he bounced back to score in his next game, against Cheltenham Town, taking his season’s tally to 12. Prior to that, the Scottish striker had suffered – by his standards – a slightly lean spell in front of goal, but this was not something that played on his mind.

“I want to score in every game I play in,” said Hardie. “If I get one [at Sheffield Wednesday], it will be unreal, in the kind of game it will be, the atmosphere it will be. They are the games you want to score in.

“I went on a bit of slow patch, but I’ve scored in a couple of games now. When I was going through that stage, I never even thought about the fact that I hadn't scored; I still felt like I was playing well. The gaffer had full trust in me, the boys had full trust in me, that I was bringing other things to the game other than goals.

“I'm a confident player and when I did go through that stage where I was not scoring as much, I was still thinking that I would score the next chance I had.

“I think it showed after Ipswich. I missed an absolute sitter then bounced back straight away. It was important for me to do that after missing the chance.”

It has been two weeks since the Cheltenham game, with Argyle not playing since. The first-team squad, which is looking healthier since some January additions were made, and several players have returned from injury lay-offs, is now large enough that an in-house 11 v 11 game was scheduled for last Friday.

Hardie – who points out that he scored in said game – says that the squad depth gives Argyle added options, and he focused on those can particularly aid him in his striking role.

He said: “We played a game on Friday and there’s two starting 11s that could compete at the top end of League One.

“Callum [Wright] makes forward runs in behind, it leaves more gaps for the striker. Finn [Azaz] drops in and gets the ball, plays the ball forward. There's lots of different ways that we can play and the players that have got now just play off each other.

“There's no weakness in any area, which is important for a squad especially at this time of this season.”