Owls are Saint-sational in five goal thrashing

Wednesday firmly put behind them their worst start to a season ever as they put in a five star performance to thrash bogey team Southampton 5-0 at Hillsborough. It was Wednesday's biggest win since a 7-2 creaming of Burnley in 2003 and their biggest win under Brian Laws.

Two goals a piece from midfielder Glenn Whelan and Akpo Sodje and a third goal of the season for the impressive Burton O'Brien sealed an emphatic home win for The Owls. The home side had only lead by the single goal going into the break and four goals in a crazy nine minute spell left the south coast club shell shocked.

This report from Big Owl...

If we go back to last Saturday at 3pm I guarantee there would be few Owls expecting much more than a point or two from the next few games. I sorta had a feeling about Plymouth as we are their bogey team but anything from West Brom other than a tonking with Brunt on the scoresheet seemed unlikely. Ditto Southampton, who seem to be the team we least like to play in recent years. To achieve the seven points and score eight goals whilst conceding just two is the mark of a team who may just have turned the corner.

The same team who started at WBA apart from Johnson replacing Beevers at centre half was the order of the day. From the off there was a spring to our step and although we looked a little nervous against a good ball playing Soton side there was little in it. Both teams played good football without getting near to testing either keeper and it was Soton who had the first attempt actually needing a save as Grant went down to collect the ball. Grant rushed out to the edge of the box to clear a dangerous ball but it spun loose to a Soton player who looped it towards an unguarded net but Michael Johnson cool as you like got back and simply watched the ball fall just wide of the upright. Suddenly we were on the attack and Sodje burst into the box with the ball and although he seemed to be going away from the goal the keepers clumsy challenge upended the big man and the ref blew for an obvious penalty. Whelan grabbed the ball and wasn’t going to let anyone else get hold of this and it proved to be the right thing as he sent the keeper the wrong way and blasted low into the opposite corner 1-0 at half time and the Owls walk off to a standing ovation.

If anything Soton who had played some excellent football first half came out even more fired up. Saganovski and also Viafara went off with Bradley Wright Philips and Idiakez coming on in their place. Was I worried about Wright-Philips against Tommy Spurr? Not on this form as the youngster even had the cheek to take the ball off the Soton wingers feet not once but on several occasions. Spurr like the rest of the defence were rarely troubled until late on and the youngster has started to show a wider range of passing and bombed on many times with BOB dropping in behind him. BOB himself is the very definition of renaissance man with another excellent performance topped off with a well taken goal. He doesn’t play like an out and out winger but sits a little more central giving him scope to move both inside and outside. His touch today was also sublime at times and he rarely gave possession away. The Owls killed the game off with a blistering fifteen minute spell. Sodje burst forward and laid the ball off to Tudgay who took out the defenders attending with a lovely return and Sodje blasted under the keeper for his second in two Saturdays and the Owls second on the day. The big guy wheeled away and literally bounced up and down as he was so ecstatic. Six minutes later Whelan smacked in his second of the game for 3-0 whilst the goal of the day was about to come as Sodje got away down the right and powered past a defender with pace before unleashing a shot which I would defy any keeper to get to let alone stop for 4-0. You could see the joy on every face bar the 400 or so Soton fans that such a performance was bringing but it wasn’t finished yet. BOB took the ball on down the left and jinked inside a defender to smash a ball under a keeper who must have been desperate to wake up and discover this was all a nightmare!

Amazingly this was just on 65 minutes and we could have had more. Tudgay should have walked the ball into the net from along the by-line but chose to pass to Burton who had replaced the tired Sodje. Unfortunately his pass was behind Burton and the chance went begging. JJ went off with Small coming on in a straight swap. The Soton keeper made a save and their fans celebrated sarcastically as if they had scored a goal. The keeper took exception to this and gestured towards his own fans who started to boo him. Now to be fair to Soton they never gave up and must have had 3 or 4 good scoring chances after we had gone 5-0 up. At times we were a little slack at the back but I would put this down to the resurgent confidence in scoring and I do believe that had Soton scored one goal then we would have tightened up and dropped back rather than have half our defence upfield trying to score more.

Beevers replaced the totally knackered Johnson with a few minutes to go but nothing today was going to puncture the Owls and Grant carried on with his resurgent form making several good stops without needing to be brilliant. Full time and everyone in the crowd stood to salute a superb performance.

Team:-
Grant GK 8/10 one small spill didn’t spoil an assured performance against some good opposition strikers
Simek RB 7/10 possibly a quieter game for the yank than of late but that’s a good thing
Hinds CB 8/10 solid and looking like a prospect
M Johnson CB 8/10 spent half the match on the deck after making winning tackles, a rock
Spurr LB 8.5/10 best game Ive seen him in. looked every inch an attacking full back
BOB LM 8/10 here there and everywhere and took his goal well
Watson CM 7/10 solid when needed though looked a little tired towards the end
Whelan CM 8.5/10 two goals and an all action performance (first ten mins excluded)
JJ RM 7/10 not as imposing as he can be and occasionally over estimated his ability to go past players but still effective
Tudgay ST 8/10 although he didn’t score he integrated so well into the whole team performance today
Sodje ST 9/10 huge props to the big guy. 2 super goals and an all action performance

Subs:-
Burton 6/10
Small 6/10
Beevers

Ref 7.5/10 a bit petty at times but no silly decisions

Crowd sub 20,000 but made enough noise

MOM - Sodje by a long leg

BigOwl

Fans View | Paul Thorndike (former Aussie Owl) How good was Sodje for his second goal?! Did anyone else notice him and Laws with their heads together for 30 seconds when he came off. You could see the passion. It was one of those days though where for 15 minutes everything we did turned in to a goal and to be fair their keeper was pants. Southampton had loads of chances when we switched off after the fifth but you just knew everything they did was gonna miss by inches or they were gonna fluff it. Best Owls day I've had since Cardiff. More of the same please. I'm still buzzing.  Only poor note was the attendance.

Laws verdict: "I felt we worked extremely hard. Everybody is putting in a lot of effort and we were creating chances." "Confidence is a major factor in football and that was missing at the start of the season." "We had an poor start to the season and hopefully this result has gone some way to making that disappear."

Two goal hero Akpo Sodje verdict: "That was my best performance so far and I think there's more to come. I am feeling very confident right now but I have never lost my confidence since I came here." "This was down to team-work today, we worked really hard and stuck together and came out flying after getting the goal before half time." "It's a good time to get the break now because we've had a lot of games recently and picked up really good points home and away. It's great to go out with a 5-0 win, we can now put in some more hard work in training and come back even stronger."