Owls creep into Fourth Round
Wednesday entered the hat for the Fourth Round in the FA Cup with a narrow 1-0 win over
Second Division side Bristol City. In the wet conditions infront of a small Hillsborough turnout
the Owls' players battled it out to ensure there would be no cup upset on this day, as they
aim to find some kind of form in the league to help them in the relegation battle.
With their current position and match form, manager Danny Wilson certainly won't take into
account the opposition or scoreline - the saying is 'a win's a win'.
The Owls welcomed back into the side Danny Sonner, back from suspension, while keeper Kevin Pressman was
dropped for the returning Pavel Srnicek. The rest of the side remained the same to that that has struggled to chalk up
wins over the past months.
As the game kicked off it was difficult to spot which side was from which division, as Wednesday found themselves
under pressure from the underdogs straight away. Ivan Tistimetanu's long range drive was close to rocketing into the
back of the net before Srnicek managed to tip his effort over. Things got worse for Wednesday on 18 minutes when
full-back Andy Hinchcliffe was forced to leave the field with injury, and was replaced by youngster Mark McKeever.
The early pressure was relieved in the 24th minute when a pin-point Wim Jonk cross found a towering Andy Booth
whose header beat the despairing dive of Bristol keeper Billy Mercer. It was a personal relief for the player himself, who
has failed to score on a regular basis this season. He had another chance just moments later but his header this time
went inches to the wrong side of the post.
Wednesday were now growing in confidence and it showed in further shots on goal that were unlucky not to find the back
of the net. Swedish midfielder Niclas Alexandersson had a shot parmed away, and Mercer came to his side's aid when
he denied Belgian striker Gilles de Bilde the opportunity to shoot.
Half-time: Owls 1-0 Bristol City
The half-time scoreline of just the one goal to nil was certainly not the cushion Wednesday would've been looking for at
this point of the match. As expected Bristol came out after the break all guns blazing, and Srnicek was called into action
right away. Carl Hutchings fired in a shot that the Czech. Republic keeper did well to turn away. The second period
continued in the same fashion as Bristol aimed to throw men forward in an attempt to snatch something from the tie.
With just two minutes remaining Danny Wilson opted to throw another youngster, Alan Quinn, into action as the result
was seemingly in the bag. The young Irishman had only been on the field for a couple of minutes before he jeopardised
the team's chances of going into the next round of the cup when he was sent off for going dangerously into a challenge
with City skipper Shaun Taylor. Despite Taylor's honest attempts towards the referee Mike Reed to keep Quinn on the
field the man in charge flashed the red card and Quinn was on his way for an early shower.
Wednesday then endured three intense minutes of extra-time as Bristol saw their chance to snatch something from the
game. They held on, only just, and the victory came as a huge relief. Another home draw in the next round , along with a
few more Premier League wins in the next few weeks, will certainly be on Danny Wilson's Christmas list.
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Bell
- de Bilde (88 mins)