We may not have played well, we were happy to hear the final whistle . . . but we’ll take the three points against Peterborough which lifted us out of the bottom three.
Dave Jones said afterwards that, apart from a bright opening, the first-half was like watching paint dry but, to be honest, he was being generous.
Take a dose of misplaced passes, add a fair share of players trying to take the hard route when the easy pass would often do, then mix it in with an energy-lacking team performance and you have the perfect recipe for as dull and frustrating a 45 minutes as you could not wish to see.
Ross Barkley’s screamer straight after half-time gave us the lead and lifted the spirits, the crowd and the team for a period. As in previous weeks, the referee seemed determined not to award us a penalty, Michail Antonio appeared to be dragged back in the box and then Miguel Llera was blatantly blocked in the penalty area 15 minutes from time.
However, Llera struck within a minute of the appeal being turned down, putting us two-up with a cracking header from Antonio’s equally impressive cross.
In typical Wednesday style, we then allowed Posh to reduce the arrears almost immediately, George Boyd firing home after we failed to clear a corner convincingly and that led to a nervy closing spell.
Jose Semedo, who continues to grow in stature at this level, was man of the match, while Anthony Gardner and Lewis Buxton also caught the eye.
A dilemma for Dave Jones, for home games at least, is playing just one man up front. The tireless Chris O’Grady ploughed a lonely furrow while Jay Bothroyd turned in another frustratingly lack-lustre perfomance in his withdrawn role.
However, it was another three points, it takes us out of the bottom three and gives us confidence-boosting back-to-back wins as we prepare for the visit of managerless Blackpool to Hillsborough on Tuesday evening.