Wednesday dominated the game against ten-man Millwall at the New Den but ended up on the wrong end of a 1-0 scoreline in our first defeat of the season.
The statistics show we had 21 shots to Millwall’s three and had 70 per cent possession but the one area where we trailed the home side was in goals scored and the reverse takes us down to sixth place in the early Championship table.
Millwall took the lead on 37 minutes when Keiren Westwood failed to cut out a left-wing corner and Matt Smith outjumped the Wednesday defence to head home at the far post with their only effort on target in the opening 45 minutes.
Wednesday had the better of the action in the first half, Adam Reach going close with a long-range volley that clipped the top of the crossbar and, six minutes after opening the scoring, the home side were reduced to 10 men when Jed Wallace was red-carded for a poor challenge on Kieran Lee.
That set the scene for almost total Wednesday domination after the break, Jacob Murphy forcing a good save out of Bartosz Bialkowski after a run and lay-off from Kadeem Harris before Steven Fletcher tested the keeper again from the edge of the box.
As we continued to push forward, Bannan saw his low effort saved by Bialkowski after good work by Harris and the latter blazed the loose ball high over the bar.
Millwall’s only real response came when Westwood tipped over a snapshot from Aiden O’Brien while Wednesday pushed on, mainly through crosses from Harris, but we rarely looked liked converting any of them and remain on six points from three games, one point behind league leaders Leeds.
Westwood, Iorfa (Bannan 46), Lees, Borner, Palmer (Luongo 59), Harris, Hutchinson, Lee (Rhodes 65), Reach, Murphy, Fletcher.