Single goal sends Saddlers out

Lee Peacock's expertely taken goal in the 21st minute was enough to send the Owls through to the second round of the Carling League Cup. Midfielder Glenn Whelan picked out Peacock who chested the ball down and wasted no time in stabbing the ball into the back of the Walsall net.

It was Wednesday's fourth win in a row, a feat not achieved since the 1997/98 season. Chris Turner resisted the temptation to field a weakened side with two league games in the following five days by naming an unchanged line-up to the side that beat Huddersfield Town on the weekend.

Walsall player-manager made ten changes to his team but the former England international would have been disappointed by his side's effort on the night. David Lucas, who has been in sparkling form this month for the Owls, had very little to do in a game dominated by a Wednesday side that failed to kill the game off with another goal or two.

The biggest scare for the home side was when defender Guy Branston nearly headed into his own net, but the former Rotherham United man had his keeper to thank for saving his blushes.

The Owls have been drawn away to Coventry City in the second round of the competition. The Skyblues have won just one Championship game in the start to their season, but had no problems in brushing aside League One outfit Torquay United 4-1 in their first round fixture.

This report from Beastie...

For the crowd of 50 short of 9k this was a bit of a treat. I know there's gonna be all sorts of stuff about, Walsall not fielding a "proper" team, but more fool them, and whatever team it was they had representing them, it was outclassed.

It should have been a game about two old heads locking horns, and battling it out to the bitter end. In the red corner, the former fallen super star Merson and in the blue corner Super Marsden. Marsden and Merson at one point a few years ago would prolly have been a no contest in favour of the Walsall manager, but I kid you not, he was outclassed by the Owls skipper in every department, and you wouldn't have guessed which was the former England star.

Since that first game of the season Marsden has been a revelation. He said it wasn't good enough, and apologised for his performance, he's made up for that already. His tackling, and the amount of times he wins the ball back from those tackles is incredible.

His passing, though not without the odd lapse, is excellent. I take back everything I said about him from that first match. The defence, with Bullen back at right back and Collins in the centre, overall were excellent, with those two in particular very good.

It makes such a difference when the defence play the ball out instead of lumping it up field. It seemed as though every time JP got the ball, again he could be the last man, and for most of the time he did just that. Brunt started better this game, and was particularly good in the first half.

He went missing again a few times in the second half though, and was replaced by Dave on 60mins, who made a decent impact and added a bit of vitality at a crucial time. The top two for me tonight though, from a good all round team performance were Peacock, again, and Whelan. I lost count of the number of times I said, that's Whelan, again...Great pass. Peacock...Lordy....I'll have what he has for breakfast. He's so bloody strong. He deserved the goal, and took it so well, and when he left the field it was to a much deserved standing ovation.

It was prolly the only thing missing from Whelans performance for me, and he prolly deserved one too. If I was to nit pick, he looked a little tired with around 10 minutes or so to go, and I expected it to be him who was replaced by McMahon instead of Peacock.

A couple of howlers from Branston. One where he got in the way of a shot from us, in their box. It almost looked as though he had gone into automatic mode and threw himself in front of the ball. He even got up laughing and saying something to Peacock...Prolly along those lines.

Then within a few minutes in our box, he gave away a poor pass and put us under a bit of pressure. They did have the odd attack, but never really looked like scoring to me, but what really impressed me was for at least a 20 minute spell in the second half, it was wave after wave of Wednesday attack, and was quite breathtaking at times.

If I have a gripe, or two....it's...

a) that we seem to want to take a touch or pass too much
and
b) we still invite a bit of pressure on through the middle at times. We need to kill this sort of game off, and we had enough possession in this game to do so, as we all know only too well, at 1-0 up they still think they can get something out of it.

It was another, good, entertaining game, and a good display by Wednesday, again, and it's so nice to be able to say that, and feel proud, and excited watching them, and to hear the Owls fans around me, saying similar things. Long may it continue.


Half-time: Owls 1 -0 Walsall

Chris Turner's post match comments:

"We totally dominated it and played extremely well at times. The only negative was that we only scored one goal for the amount of shots and crosses we got in."

"That's the sort of pass he (Whelan) can see and execute, Glenn is feeling his way into the team. He had patches of brilliance and other patches where he didn't do the simple thing. But the ball was worthy of any top class midfield player and the finish from Peacock was excellent."

AnzOwl's verdict: We did enough to win this game, and that's fine for me. Now who's for five in a row?...