GW30: Sheffield Wednesday 5-0 Cardiff City
The Owls fly high with five goal thriller at Hillsborough
Abbie Thomson
Date Published: Tuesday 6th April 2021
With an absent Darren Moore the Owls thrashed the Bluebirds yesterday evening, scoring five goals at home, moving them within six points of Championship safety.
After getting three in the back of the net in the first half, Wednesday went from strength to strength, scoring another two in the second half. A sweet victory for the Owls who had lost their previous four games at home.
Image: Sky Sports
It was an unlikely loss for McCarthy’s boys, and a manager who had never lost at Hillsborough.
The Owls assistant coach, Jamie Smith was in charge once again, as Darren Moore was still not in attendance after testing positive for COVID-19, which ended magnificently for the Birmingham boy.
It was a show of excellence from start to finish for Wednesday, who leading up to this match had not scored more than twice in a game, this whole season.
After just three minutes Julian Borner, headed in a wonderful goal from Barry Bannan’s corner as the Owls took an early lead.
A later cross from Liam Palmer saw Wednesday double their lead, as Callum Paterson got the second against his former club.
Three minutes later, after some spectacular play from the Owls, Adam reach fired a sweet shot into the top corner from a free kick set piece, which saw Darren Moore’s boys go into half time 3-0 up against the play-off favourites.
Image: Sky Sports
Cardiff City gave a poorly attempt at a comeback in the second half with a chance from Aden Flint’s header which went just wide of the goal. Wednesday quickly battled back on the counterattack, but Bannan’s strike was blocked by Curtis Nelson.
Shortly after the Bluebirds were back on the attack, which ended poorly as Jordan Rhodes managed to break scoring the Owls fourth on the 65th minute at Hillsborough. This was the fourth goal in five games for Rhodes.
Minutes later, Reach got his second goal of the evening, beating Josh Sang and chipping the ball into the back of the net from a close range, which also saw a second assist of the night for Josh Windass.
The Owls were able to preserve their clean sheet after an important block from Bannan in the last few minutes of game saw Wednesday victorious over Cardiff with an important clan sheet at home.
A sore loss for the Bluebirds which saw them go eight points from the play-offs, a fall which might see their promotion hopes slowly slipping away.
In his post-match interview assistant Sheffield Wednesday coach, Jamie Smith said to the press “we knew it was going to be a difficult game for us today, we scored five great goals, but also the pleasing thing for us was the way we defended as well.
When asked if he saw this score coming Smith said “Not 5-0 no, not against a team like Cardiff, but we know we have got quality within the group, a performance like that is there, it is in them, it’s just bringing it out more often.
“We’ve been in for about six weeks now, but of them six weeks we have only had 7 or 8 proper training sessions, it does take a long time.
“They’ve (the players) set their standards, we know what they can achieve, it’s just about being consistent with it, but they’ve definitely got the quality to do that”.
A defeated Bluebirds manager Mick McCarthy told the press “The first goal has set them up with a bit more confidence than maybe they would have had. To concede from a corner kick, we should have defended it better. That’s disappointing.
“I thought we started the second half well. We’ve had a couple of scrambles but we couldn’t score, and we’ve been punished for throwing men forward and they’ve caught us on the break twice.
“It was the worst performance that we’ve had since I’ve been here, and I would imagine that it was the best Sheffield Wednesday performance all season.
“I think teams have looked at us now and seen us as a threat, and they’ve had to play better against us. Sheffield Wednesday tonight were very good, I thought.
“We’ve got to try and win against Blackburn now and get back to a better team performance all-round. We’ll certainly try to do that on Saturday.”