Sheffield Wednesday drew 0-0 with Watford in the Championship this evening.
Sheffield Wednesday played a third-straight game at Hillsborough tonight, welcoming a Watford side who’d lost just one of their previous nine before tonight’s game.
Danny Rohl‘s side went into this game on the back of consecutive defeats in the league. But the Owls gave Watford a stern test throughout; largely dominating the game for spells but struggling to find that killer instinct in the final third.
There were very few clear-cut chances for either side on the night and in the end, a draw was probably a fair result.
Wednesday remain in 23rd place of the Championship table and now five points from safety.
Here’s three things we learned about Sheffield Wednesday after tonight’s game…
Barry Bannan is defying age
Barry Bannan has now featured in 359 of a possible 397 league fixtures for Sheffield Wednesday since joining the club way back in 2015; starting and playing a full 90 minutes in many of those.
Yet despite barely missing a league fixture in nearly a decade, and despite turning 34 last month, he’s showing no signs of slowing down, and tonight was one of the Scot’s best performances of the season.
He was anywhere and everywhere, dictating the play and looking to create attacking plays at every possible opportunity, and also doing any defensive duties asked of him.
Sheffield Wednesday poor at set plays
Whether it’s a set piece of their own, or one of the oppositions’, Sheffield Wednesday just don’t seem very confident at them.
Watford had two golden chances to score in the first half; one when a corner was allowed to drop inside the box and one when a free-kick wasn’t dealt with.
With Bambo Diaby out of the side, the Owls do seem to lack a bit of aerial dominance, and this may be an area that Rohl needs to wait until the summer to bolster, especially so with the impressive Di’Shon Bernard currently out of contract in the summer.
Still lacking end product
Tonight’s performance could’ve been a perfect one for Wednesday.
They largely outplayed a strong, in form Watford side, with plenty of possession (59%, as per Sofascore) and plenty of shots on goal (19 in total) too.
But those shots were mostly from range and very few actually troubled Ben Hamer in the Watford goal, and it highlights a distinct lack of end product for Rohl’s side.
Their passing has come along leaps and bounds since his first game, which coincidentally was against Watford back in October, but they still seem to be one quality striker away from really going on a winning streak.