Wednesday eased through to the third round of the Carabao Cup with a totally dominant 2-0 win at Rochdale this evening.
Garry Monk changed the entire starting line-up from Saturday’s victory at Cardiff and second-half goals from Elias Kachunga – his first for the club – and sub Josh Windass earnt us a third round tie away to the winners of tomorrow night’s Ipswich-Fulham second round match.
There were few chances in the first half but Wednesday went close on 18 minutes when Adam Reach curled just wide from the edge of the box after a short free kick by Alex Hunt.
Then, eight minutes before the break, Hunt saw his hooked shot cleared off the line by Eoghan O’Connell and Fisayo Dele-Bashiru’s shot from the rebound was saved by home keeper Gavin Bazunu.
Hunt forced a diving save out of Bazunu almost straight from the restart and that set the scene for almost total Wednesday dominance as we created 20-odd chances on goal in the second half and, most importantly, scored twice.
Reach was just off-target, then Kachunga headed Julian Borner’s cross against an upright but was ruled offside.
However, Kachunga was not to be denied and was on the mark just nine minutes after the interval, heading powerfully home from Liam Palmer’s excellent cross.
We continued to press, with both Reach and Hunt going close from long range, before Reach then struck the bar from 12 yards out when he should have scored after being set up by Windass.
Windass continued to cause problems for the Rochdale defence late on, bringing a fine save out of Bazunu and missing a great chance from six yards before sealing our third round place in the 88th minute when he smashed the ball home from close range from Reach’s low drilled free kick into the box.
Wildsmith, Palmer, Brennan (Iorfa 80), Shaw, Borner, Odubajo, Pelupessy (Grant 86), Dele-Bashiru, Hunt, Reach, Kachunga (Windass 70). Unused subs. Dawson, Waldock, Penney, Hagan.