Wednesday’s disappointing build-up to the new season continued with a 1-0 defeat at Doncaster this evening.
Prior to kick off, the teams gathered around the centre circle for a minute’s applause in tribute to Trevor Francis and Chris Bart-Williams who both passed away on Monday and the Wednesday players also wore black armbands.
As for the match, the reverse means we have now failed to score in our last three pre-season friendlies and, more concerning, we have created just a handful of chances in that time.
Some might point to it only being warm-up matches and there’s no doubt the scorching heat in Spain last week was a distinct disadvantage for the squad. However, at this stage new manager Xisco Munoz looks to have a tough task on his hands to forge a squad that will meet the demands of the step up to Championship football, starting in 10 days time.
Against Rovers, Callum Paterson was foiled by defender Jack Senior’s last-ditch clearance early on but Doncaster looked the far more competitive outfit in the first half, without creating many chances of their own.
Their best opportunity of the half came on the quarter-hour mark when the unmarked Tommy Rowe’s fierce shot from inside the box brought a tipover save out of Cameron Dawson while Wednesday struggled to trouble the home defence after that early opening.
We then enjoyed our only dangerous spell of the game at the start of the second half.
Will Vaulks shot just wide from the edge of the box after being set up by Lee Gregory and Josh Windass saw his volley blocked by Senior after a trademark Marvin Johnson cross.
However, that was as good as it got for Wednesday and Doncaster struck with the only goal of the game on 72 minutes. Paterson was undone by the pace of Tyler Roberts down the left and, when the cross came in, Luke Molyneux lost his marker to head home from close range.
Boss Munoz introduced several youngsters in the closing stages, Rio Shipston firing just over the bar late on after a rare threatening move from Wednesday, and we now move on to our final pre-season game at home to Premier League new boys, Luton, on Saturday.
Dawson (Charles 79), Glover (Byers 64), Iorfa (Fusire 70), Famewo (Onukwuli 86), James (Flannery 79), Vaulks (Shipston 74), Bannan (Cadamarteri 74), Johnson (Adetoro 70), Paterson (Siqueira 79), Windass (Cook 79), Gregory (Smith 64).