Owls defence continues to leak

The Owls defence continued to leak goals as they twice threw away their lead in yesterday's 2-2 draw with Chesterfield Town. It's eight goals conceded in the last three games and Paul Sturrock's side have now slipped to 15th in the league table.

Adam Proudlock gave the Owls a dream start when he opened the scoring in the 9th when his low shot beat Sprities keeper Muggleton. But the visitors replied swiftly with an equaliser four minutes later with a headed goal by defender Blatherwick. The early goal scoring frenzy continued in the 15th minute when Wednesday were awarded a penalty. Chesterfield defender Bailey was judged to have handled the ball in the box, and Steven MacLean tucked away his 7th goal of the season to restore Wednesday's lead.

Wednesday's first half performance overall was good but it was a different story in the second half, as tired legs began to set in. And the Owls defence let down their guard yet again when Clingan pegged Chesterfield back for the second time in the game with a long-range effort that flew past a hapless Ola Tidman.

Half-time: Owls 2-1 Chesterfield

Paul Sturrock's post match comments:
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to appreciate that from crosses into our box, anybody seems to have a free header on our goals. In the first minute, Collins' man had a free header. In the tenth minute, Wood's man had a header for a goal. And in the second half, Bullen's man had a header he should have scored from, and they eventually did score from. If you don't header the ball in your box, you've got serious problems."

"Competition for places is obviously a problem. Our front two know that if things don't go well, there's nobody breathing down their necks. Also, we're asking kids to do men's jobs. These kids in the back four are obviously very naive and causing us concern but our other two centre-halves and the left-back are lying on the treatment table."

"John Blackley (Defensive co-ordinator) has only had an hour and a half with these players in two weeks. Now we've got a month to clear our heads and let everybody know where we're coming from."

"We have seemed to die late on in games and it's something we're going to have to work very, very hard on. Wednesday is coming and everybody will know the situation by then."

Glenn Whelan's post match comments:
"We're very disappointed not to come away with the win. I think we were brilliant in the first half but lost a bit of confidence and they got a goal back. They had a goal at us and we weren't really capable of coping with it."

"There's a few tired legs out there. We've had five games in two weeks now so it is going to take its toll."

AnzOwls' verdict: