Huddersfield ease to home win
Sheffield Wednesdays winless run under new manager Tony Pulis continued on Tuesday evening as they lost 2-0 at Huddersfield Town.
The Owls welcomed Massimo Luongo back into the side following completion of a suspension with Joost Van Aken dropping to the bench. Without meaning to be disrespectful to Huddersfield, having played against a host of teams in and around the top 6 in the Championship recently, Owls fans would have perhaps been forgiven for seeing this as a good opportunity to pick up some points - any that did were to be sorely disappointed.
The visitors started on the back foot and could easily have fell behind before the opening goal which came on 11 minutes. Wednesday stood off, allowing Huddersfield easy possession around the box and Pipa picked out Koroma in the penalty area. Koroma was able to sidestep Iorfa to make space for a shot and his low strike nestled in the bottom corner of the goal.
The goal didn't prove to act as any form of wake up call as the Terriers continued to boss the game. Mbenza had already fired an effort off target before he doubled the home sides lead midway through the half, scoring with a free-kick from the edge of the box that left Wildsmith floundering.
Wednesday did finally manage to make some inroads in the opposition half in the closing stages of the first 45 minutes but failed to muster anything to test Hamer in the home goal.
Anyone hoping for a change of tact in the second half was to be left disappointed. At 2-0 down with 4 substitutions still at his disposal, the one change Pulis chose to make was to replace the clearly unfit holding midfielder Luongo with fellow holding midfielder Pelupessy. To his credit, Pelupessy was one of the few players to produce anything like a competent performance but he was never going to change the pattern of the play.
Within 5 minutes of the restart the Terriers had the chance to make it 3-0 as Iorfa chopped down Bacuna in the penalty area. Fortunately for Wednesday, Bacuna stepped up and fired the penalty kick wide but it wasn't a miss that would spark the Owls into life.
The remainder of the game drifted without much goalmouth incident at either end, Huddersfield seemingly content at 2-0 up and Wednesday incapable of applying concerted pressure.
Pulis belatedly turned to the bench with ten minutes to go, giving Rhodes and Kachunga a run out, followed by Brown with 5 minutes left. Rhodes did manage to force Hamer to turn a strike round the post late on but the game had long since gone, leaving Pulis without a win in his first 6 games as Owls manager.