Carlos Carvalhal said his decision to bring on an extra striker midway through the second half reaped its reward as Wednesday clinched a late win over relegated Aston Villa at Hillsborough.
Fernando Forestieri grabbed the only goal of the game with five minutes remaining and Carvalhal reflected on his introduction of Atdhe Nuhiu for Ross Wallace on 67 minutes, saying: “We gave a signal to everybody that we wanted to win by putting Atdhe Nuhiu up with Gary Hooper, and we scored the goal with a mistake because Gary pressed the goalkeeper. We deserved to win against a strong team in the competition.”
Forestieri took advantage of poor defensive work from Villa to collect the three points,Villa keeper Pierluigi Golloni slicing his clearance and the ball breaking for Forestieri to burst clear and coolly slot home.
Wednesday had begun the game well but we lost some of our attacking impetus when Steven Fletcher was forced off midway through the first half with a head injury and Villa began to dominate in the second period before Forestieri struck.
Looking back at the 90 minutes, Carvalhal said: “We were fantastic in the first half and deserved to be ahead.
“Villa have a good team and they started playing nearer our defence, who did some very good work.”
He added: “We have a team full of special players and even though we played against a very strong team, we deserved to win this game.”