Boxing Day blues for Owls
Wednesday, missing the creativity and inspiration of Carbone, looked a lost outfit. They certainly didn't look like the team which beat Man.Utd 3-1 and drew away to Chelsea and Newcastle in weeks gone past.
Perhaps the whole Di Canio saga had got to the players. but this performance was below par and left a good crowd of around 33,000 dissapointed with their team's effort. This was only Leicester's second away win of the season and Wednesday's first defeat at home in four months.
This was, ofcourse, the game when all would be forgiven for Di Canio and he would once again wear the blue and white of Sheffield Wednesday with pride and passion as he has done. Instead, it was announced before the game that the club had further suspended the Italian until 11 January. He is due back at Hillsborough on 4 January, that is according to his lawyer. But to this point no-one knows the whereabouts of the AWOL striker.
With no Carbone in the team (suspension) it was a re-call to the team for Humphreys who partnered Booth upfront. Yugoslav Stefanovic also replaced Sonner in midfield to make his first start of the season following work permit troubles.
Leicester enjoyed most of the clear-cut opening chances and on 10 minutes Heskey had a volley fly that was palmed away by Srnicek. Both teams were under performing and goal scoring chances were few and far between. On 34 minutes Leicester took the lead. A poor backpass by Hinchcliffe let in Cottee and the veteran took it round the Wednesday keeper before slotting in from a very tight angle.
The head's didn't drop for Wednesday and right from the restart they almost levelled the scores when Rudi could and should have scored. Humphreys pulled the ball back to the Norwegian who was stood on the penalty spot but his effort was sliced wide to the dismay of Wednesday fans.
Half-time: Owls 0-1 Leicester
Some 12 minutes after the restart Wednesday had another golden opportunity to equalise but the chance was once again wasted. This time it was Alexandersson who miscued his shot after a cross from Stefanovic.
With 20 minutes left Danny Wilson introduced 17-year-old Owen Morrison into the game. The young striker was making his Owls debut before even making an appearance in the reserves. Morrison has scored 8 goals in 10 games for the Academy Under 17's team.
Morrison couldn't mark his debut with a dream goal although Wednesday threw everything at Leicester in the dying moment to try and salvage something from the game, to no avail.
The Christmas period is always known to be a busy time for the football fixture list and there's only two days rest for the Owls until they make a tricky journey to Birmingham to face Aston Villa. John Gregory's team has been leading the league for most of the season but a few poor results has seen them lose their spot on top. A win for Villa could see them finish 1998 on top of the table, but Wednesday will be out to prevent that.
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Ullathorne