STEVE Cotterill has urged the people of the town to get behind their team as they look to reverse their slide down the Championship table.

The Clarets have gone 11 games without a win, which has seen them slump from fourth to 15th in the table.

And after playing at Turf Moor just once since December 23, Cotterill is pleading with fans to turn out in force and cheer the Clarets to a badly-needed victory.

The Burnley boss said: "We are the same people that were flying at the start of the season. There's challenges everyday, in most walks of life, but you have to meet the challenge head on and Sheffield Wednesday will be a tough game.

"They will probably have about 2-3,000 fans on Saturday, which will make it tough in itself. We need what I would call our real passionate Burnley crowd because, at the moment, myself and the players need the crowd.

"We do our bit, ok of late it hasn't happened, but we need a passionate Burnley crowd behind us on Saturday.

"While we've got a home game, six out of our last seven games have been away. And if you include a double Reading trip, we've prepared for seven out of eight games away from home. That's tough as well. A nice home game with a passionate Burnley crowd behind the players, that might help them (the players)."

After the 3-1 defeat against QPR at the weekend, Cotterill admitted the players were low but said the attitude in training was as good as it always was.

He added: "We just try and encourage the players in training, which is what we try and do most weeks, and that's what I've been doing this week, but that's hard to do when you're a little bit down yourself.

"We have done that and hopefully, by Saturday, they will be a little bit higher than they were on Monday for instance. Hopefully that will be the case and we can kick on.

"I don't think, at the moment, you would spend as much time looking at the league table as you did earlier in the season when we were up there. We just need to focus on one game at a time and I would say the same if we were in the top six."

But Cotterill was able to take some comfort from tomorrow's opponents.

After Paul Sturrock was sacked, the Owls went on an unbeaten run with youth team coach Sean McAuley at the helm.

He added: They have put a run of form together with the youth team coach in charge after Paul Sturrock had gone. I think they won three or four games on the spin.

"This is a very tight league and points are very hard to come by, one win can obviously change your fortunes."