Wednesday’s failure to turn chances into goals was in evidence again in a disappointing 1-1 draw with Birmingham at Hillsborough tonight.
We had 24 efforts on goal – only five of them on target – and had to settle for a point against a very average Birmingham side.
The draw sees us drop to 10th place but still four points from the final play-off place after Wednesday evening’s Championship fixtures.
Steven Fletcher and Kieran Lee had the best chances of a first half totally dominated by Wednesday and Moses Odubajo went closest to putting us ahead just before half-time, his thumping long-range effort hitting the crossbar with keeper Connal Trueman beaten.
Then, within three minutes of the restart we found ourselves one-down, getting caught out down our left-hand side before Alvaro Gimenez stole in front of the defence at the near post to turn home the resulting cross from Jeremie Bela.
We were soon back on the offensive, Kadeem Harris firing into the side netting when he would probably have been better shooting across goal and then sub Fernando Forestieri cutting inside and curling his effort just wide.
Harris saw another shot deflected for a corner and Fletcher’s first-timer from inside the box flew well over the top as we continued to dominate the game.
Birmingham posed few threats and the Wednesday pressure finally paid off nine minutes from time when Harris cut in from the right and drove the equaliser low into the far corner of the Kop end net from the edge of the box.
Atdhe Nuhiu, also introduced during the second half, went close to getting the winner when his fierce drive from inside the box was parried away by Trueman and then Massimo Luongo saw his injury-time header cleared off the line by Marc Roberts to deny us victory.
The point leaves us looking for our first win in six games when we travel to Charlton on Saturday, the recent run also including three successive home draws.
Dawson, Odubajo, Iorfa, Börner (Lees 46), Fox, Harris, Bannan, Lee (Forestieri 56), Luongo, Reach (Nuhiu 67), Fletcher. Unused subs: Jones, Pelupessy, Hutchinson, Murphy. Att: 22,059.