Sheffield Wednesday closed the gap on the top 6 in the Championship on Saturday thanks to a 3-1 win over HuddersfieldTown.
Carlos Carvalhal’s side were not their usual energetic selves in the first 45 minutes, perhaps missing the presence of midfielder enforcer Sam Hutchinson and creative livewire Barry Bannan.
Town, under the guidance of new manager David Wagner, were looking to play a possession and pressing game and they saw a lot of the ball in the first half. The visitors didn’t create much from their possession but managed to restrict the home side to a couple of chances, Forestieri heading narrowly wide under pressure and Ross Wallace hitting a tame low shot at Joe Murphy.
Carvalhal reacted to Wednesday’s lacklustre display by replacing Helan with Joao at half-time but it was the Terriers who found the breakthrough when Wednesday failed to properly clear a set-piece and Pudil was outnumbered as the ball was delivered to the back post where Scannell swooped to open the scoring.
The goal stirred the Owls into action and Wallace was denied an equalizer when Whitehead headed his curling effort off the line with the keeper beaten. The experienced Terriers midfielder was lucky to escape a red-card when committing a deliberate foul to halt a Wednesday attack, the referee letting him off with a talking to and the Town bench, clearly relieved to still have 11 players on the bench quickly substituted Whitehead.
Wednesday threw on McGugan and Hooper in place of Semedo and Nuhiu to try and rescue the game but were thankful to Westwood when he denied Huws with an excellent save.
Hooper spurned a fine opportunity when failing to get a good contact on a header from a great cross from Pudil but the home side were not to be denied.
With less than 15 minutes remaining Wednesday found the goal that their improved tempo deserved when Forestieri tricked his way into a shooting position and beat the keeper only for a Town defender to clear off the line, however the loose ball fell to Joao and he swept home into the bottom corner.
The leveller lifted the crowd and the Owls went in search of a winner. Hooper missed another good opportunity, firing into the Kop after being played through but with nine minutes to Wednesday went 2-1 up. Forestieri was again the key man, his initial effort was saved by Murphy but as the ball came back to him the diminutive forward stretched to find a touch to pick out Kieran Lee and the midfield man tapped home from close range.
With Huddersfield sending players forward in search of a late leveller Joao put the gloss on the result in injury time, curling home a delightful finish from the edge of the penalty area after a good run and pass from Forestieri.
Wednesday are now just a point behind 6th placed Birmingham ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Blackburn Rovers.