Owls embarrassed at home by Burton
Sheffield Wednesday’s start to 2018 could hardly have been worse as they went down to a 3-0 home defeat to lowly Burton.
Led by caretaker boss Lee Bullen, the Owls went with a midfield 3 with Jones and Butterfield sitting centrally and Reach allowed a roaming role behind Rhodes in attack with Joao playing from the left-hand side a Wallace from the right.
Wednesday got off to a sloppy start with some needless tippy-tappy passing between Loovens and Butterfield on the edge of their own box resulting in the midfield man giving the ball away allowing Burton in on goal and Butterfield subsequently brought his man down to concede penalty. Wildsmith however came to Wednesday’s aid, saving Akins spot kick to keep the scores level.
If Owls fans were hoping that the let-off would be the kick up the backside that their team needed to spur them on they we to be sorely disappointed. On 37 minutes Flanagan picked up possession in a seemingly innocuous position on the left and drifted past 4 non-existent challenges before firing past the Owls keeper.
Late on in the half Wednesday had a great chance to level when Reach capitalised on a mix up in the Burton defence and crossed for Rhodes but the striker headed tamely at Bywater from close range with the goal at his mercy.
Loovens made way for Pudil at half-time but with 5 minutes of the restart the visitors doubled their lead. A poor ball inside from Fox presented possession back to Burton but as they were halfway inside their own half it shouldn’t have posed a great threat. Inexplicably all it took was one ball through the middle of the park to cut Wednesday apart and with the defence all at sea Dyer raced clear to slot in low past Wildsmith.
Bywater saved well from Rhodes and substitute Nuhiu as the home side huffed and puffed but Wednesday’s misery was compounded with 1 minute to go when Burton got in all too easily down the Owls right and Dyer’s cross-shot was tapped in by Naylor from close range.
The Owls need to appoint a manager soon as the past 2 displays have offered very little to ease the fans worries and the goals they conceded today were nothing short of Sunday league standard from a defensive point of view.