Wednesday’s fading hopes of making the Championship play-offs were all but ended at Hillsborough this afternoon by yet another late sucker punch in a 1-0 defeat to relegation-threatened Hull City.
The disappointing result and largely poor performance was not altogether surprising, coming at the end of a week which saw staff not being paid for March, alongside reports of the possibility of a three-window transfer embargo if that is not rectified by Monday.
On the pitch, Wednesday started slowly and it was Hull who created the first chance, Kyle Joseph seeing his shot across goal deflected by Michael Ihiekwe for a corner.
Apart from a couple of long throw-ins from Svante Ingelsson, we rarely troubled Hull until the 29th minute, Josh Windass heading wide from a Pol Valentin cross when he might have found the target.
At the other end, Pierce Charles, making his Championship debut at Hillsborough, pulled off an excellent diving save to keep out a Joseph effort from 10 yards.
And the final action of the opening half saw our first effort on target, a Windass header from Marvin Johnson’s cross easily saved by Ivor Pandur.
We began the second period with a spring in our step and were close to taking the lead almost immediately, following a slick team move we hadn’t seen in the entire first 45 minutes.
Michael Smith’s clever pass found the overlapping Marvin Johnson down the left, he crossed low into the box and Windass’ shot from the six-yard box was blocked by Pandur.
However, while Wednesday totally dominated the half we failed to create many openings until early in added time when Shea Charles burst clear and into the penalty area but his shot lacked power and Pandur saved.
For their part, Hull had been little threat after the interval but then, not for the first time this season we were hit by a last-gasp winner for the opposition, when Charlie Hughes rose highest from a free kick into the box on 94 minutes, sending a powerful 12-yard header past Charles and into the far corner of the net.
There was still time for Dominic Iorfa to see his header kept out at the foot of the post by Pandur and our search for a first win at Hillsborough since New Year’s Day goes on … along with all but ending those play-off ambitions as we now sit in 13th place and eight points adrift of sixth position with just six matches remaining.
P Charles, Valentin, Ihiekwe, Famewo (Iorfa 78), Johnson, S Charles, Bannan, Ingelsson (Armstrong 61), Gassama (Ugbo 89), Windass (Musaba 78), Smith (Paterson 61). Unused subs: Beadle, Palmer, Valery, Hatsuse. Attendance: 27,342.