Our Sheffield Wednesday writers after a big Owls victory over Preston North End
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00:00 Well Joe Cran, Deepdale Stadium we are stood in, Sheffield Wednesday have, I was going to say stolen,
00:07 but they've wrestled and taken three points away to register their second away win of the season.
00:12 How did they do it?
00:14 With Michael Equis head mainly. No, they were really steely today.
00:19 It was a proper sort of battling away performance and you could see it was what they were helping for.
00:25 I think playing a possession based game today, it was very much a hit them on the counter,
00:31 try and do a job on them so to speak, but they were good value for it.
00:40 For all Preston's possession, I thought Cam Dawson was brilliant with his takes and crosses into the box
00:48 and like I say, Michael Equis today was brilliant.
00:51 It was like an old school away day, you see them less and less now,
00:57 but there were bodies on the line, the commitment was just unbelievable.
01:02 There will be some tired legs in there, but we won't worry about the fact that they've got a game in three days just yet
01:07 and there are probably more players that are going to be unavailable.
01:12 It was the sort of performance that going into a new year in the midst of a survival scrap
01:18 that you want to see from a football team?
01:21 Especially a team that is going to have to scrap to stay up.
01:24 For all the great work that Danny Ball has done in terms of the way they're playing
01:29 and the chances they're creating, they're going to have to win games like this.
01:33 At Wednesday, you've got a horrible record here at Deep Delf and have done for a long time.
01:38 So to come here and get a result in that kind of way,
01:45 press them on a high, they've just beat Leeds before this, it means a lot.
01:50 I think to finish the year this way, going into a new calendar year,
01:54 it will just give them a lot of confidence and it's just another way that they've shown that they can win games in football.
02:01 Let's go through some of the best performances. For me, one real standout, a couple of really good ones.
02:08 Michael Equis in his return to the starting line-up was an absolute colossus at the back of the net.
02:13 He just told me now that he might have a migraine tomorrow.
02:17 He literally just got on the end of everything.
02:20 It was head and jewels, but it was head and clearances, just body on the line stuff all the way through.
02:27 The back line had to shift formation because of the injuries, so they started with a back three,
02:31 he had to shift to a back four, but just all the way through he was really, just really tidy
02:36 and just exactly where he needed to be. He's been here before.
02:40 As Roy Keane would say, that's his job.
02:43 That's his job.
02:44 But yes, you're right. I think he was probably Wednesday's standout player today.
02:48 I think another one you're going to mention is Marvin Johnson.
02:52 Yes, I think there's a bit of a trend that I've noticed with Marvin Johnson.
02:56 His first two seasons, obviously, in League One, he got some criticism for starting seasons quite slowly
03:04 and seemed to have got into it. Now, obviously, he wasn't involved in the start of the season
03:08 or the first third of the season.
03:10 He wasn't allowed to start slow.
03:12 Yes, and I think it's fair to say it's taken him a little bit of time to get into it,
03:15 but I think we're seeing the same pattern emerging.
03:18 He's had a couple of really excellent games over this Christmas period.
03:22 I think his goal was exactly, it was almost a carbon copy of what we saw so often last season,
03:29 that overlap around playing wing-backs obviously helps him because he's able to get up and down
03:35 and he was so calm for the finish as well. Really nice bit of play from him.
03:39 He had a long time to think about that.
03:40 He did, yes. Really good play from Gassama and Kadamata and just took it so coolly.
03:46 They're the sort of chances you need to be taking because there weren't many chances in the game.
03:50 Let's talk about the boot points then. Two first-half injuries to big players this season.
03:56 Aki Fumewa first and then Will Vaux, who's obviously come on really strong in the last few weeks.
04:01 Both hamstring niggles, we'd say. Hopefully not too serious.
04:06 I think from what I saw, Vaux went down with no-one around him and immediately went down
04:11 and it was quite a quick decision to come off so that would be a concern for me.
04:14 Similarly, Atkins obviously had injury issues before and all the rest of it.
04:19 Then, late on, an incident that we're not sure what happened.
04:23 Neither has Danny Brill and I don't think anyone is.
04:26 There was a suggestion from behind us in the press box with someone who was apparently paying more attention than us
04:32 that perhaps there was a second incident.
04:35 I think the iFollow cameras seem to have picked up the initial tackle and there doesn't seem to be a lot of contact there.
04:42 Perhaps there's a bit of afters that we'll have to take a look at.
04:45 So, in short, we don't know what we're talking about there.
04:48 Which, as per usual in these videos, is absolutely part of the course.
04:52 But, what we do know is that George Vise is going to be suspended now, Atkins is injured, Bamadiabi is injured, Wolvalks is injured.
04:59 There was a cross though. Josh Windass was back tonight.
05:03 Josh Windass was back and I thought there were a couple of touches in there that showed his class.
05:06 An underrated player in terms of his influence on this Wednesday's match.
05:11 Especially in the Danny Brill set-up, I think.
05:13 We'll leave it there. We'll leave it on a happy note.
05:16 It's been a night of happy notes for Sheffield Wednesday who, as I say, take their second away win of the campaign
05:23 and cut the deficit back to six points in the Championship Survival Race.
05:28 Keep it locked, as ever, to thestaff.co.uk
05:31 Okay.
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