Sheffield Wednesday put an end to a run of 6 straight defeats on Tuesday with a 3-3 draw at Burnley in the Championship. The performance of Chris O’Grady up front was key to the result as the striker bagged a brace and put in a fine all round performance.
O’Grady has been the only Owls front man to show any sort of consistent form so far this season and has surely now earned the opportunity to get a decent run in the side.
At the end of last season’s promotion campaign if you had asked me who I would have wanted to see leading the line at the start of this season the O’Grady would not have been top of the list by any stretch of the imagination and it seemed as though Dave Jones felt the same way.
Rather than seek a move away from the club, O’Grady got his head down in pre-season and began to show what he was capable of. He hit the ground running when as a substitute he scored a double to turn the game around in the League Cup at Oldham and followed that up with a cracking goal at Derby in the opening game of the Championship season. His work rate has never been in question and his ability to hold up the ball and bring others into play is proving to be an asset to the team and now he is adding the goals that the team needs from its strikers.
In the current context the point earned at Burnley was a positive but however well the team played in an attacking sense this does not hide the fact that once again the Owls came nowhere near to getting a clean sheet and they now have the leakiest defence in the division.
New captain Martin Taylor struggled again, as he has done in general since joining on transfer deadline day from Watford. Sections of the travelling support expressed their frustration at the display of the defence by chanting the name of Miguel Llera who has been dropped to the bench in recent weeks, a move which has coincided with the team conceding even more goals except for the 1-0 defeat at Wolves.