Wednesday went back to the top of the Championship – for 24 hours at least – with a patchy 1-0 win over Luton at Hillsborough on Tuesday evening.
It was very much a tale of two halves for the Owls as we were fortunate not to be trailing at the interval after a woeful opening 45 minutes, before rediscovering some of our promising early season form in the second half to make it three wins out of four.
Kadeem Harris, who turned in another encouraging performance, got the all-important goal on 54 minutes, nudging home Stephen Fletcher’s nod back from good approach work by Jacob Murphy, after an initial error by Luton keeper Simon Sluga.
It was reward for our lively start to the second half and we might have doubled the lead in our best spell of the game. Fletcher saw an effort ruled out for offside, the same player then sent a powerful header just wide and Murphy headed over when he should have found the target.
Luton caused one or two nervy moments late on but we held firm to chalk up nine points from the first 12 and so go two clear at the top of the league.
The second-half improvement was a far cry from the opening 45 minutes when Wednesday looked totally out-of-sorts, seemingly lacking any real game plan and showing a distinct lack of energy, desire and commitment.
Luton went close to taking the lead on more than one occasion during that time, Keiren Westwood saving from Kazenga Lua Lua before the keeper almost gifted the visitors with an opening goal on 21 minutes.
He got himself in trouble as he tried to be too clever with the ball at his feet while under pressure from James Collins, the ensuing poor clearance went straight to Andrew Shinnie some 30 yards out and the Luton man’s goalbound effort saw Westwood back-pedalling to tip the shot over the bar.
An early Harris curler pushed away by Sluga was the closest we got to scoring in the first half but the winger was not to be denied after the break to seal the points and that place at the head of the table, with the other Championship pace-setters all playing on Wednesday evening.
Westwood; Odubajo, Lees, Börner, Fox; Hutchinson, Bannan, Reach (Winnall 79); Murphy, Harris (Lee 88), Fletcher (Luongo 86). Unused subs: Dawson, Lee, Rhodes, Bates, Forestieri. Att: 23,353.