Wednesday moved off the bottom of the Championship with a precious and long-awaited 1-0 win over Coventry at Hillsborough this afternoon.
A second-half Tom Lees header sealed the points to give Tony Pulis his first win in nine games as Owls boss and sees us go above Wycombe at the foot of the table.
Wednesday move onto 12 points, ahead of Wycombe on goal difference and four points behind Derby and Rotherham. The latter pair both have a game in hand after their match was postponed today while Forest are a further point ahead of us on 17 points.
The all-important goal came on 66 minutes when Tom Lees headed home a pinpoint Barry Bannan free kick. That set the scene for some nailbiting closing minutes as Coventry pushed for an equaliser but Wednesday, with Lees and Westwood outstanding at the back, held out for the three points.
In-form Coventry had begun the game in lively fashion, with Westwood, back from injury, pushing a Maxime Biamou effort away on four minutes and Leo Oestigard heading just wide from the resulting corner.
Wednesday’s best opening of the half fell to Josh Windass on 22 minutes when Kadeem Harris found him eight yards out but he decided to take an extra touch and the effort was blocked
Windass tested Coventry keeper Ben Wilson with a 20-yarder early in the second half before Coventry hit back with three openings in quick succession.
Westwood pushed away a fierce cross-shot from Sam McCallum, tipped over a defending header by Chey Dunkley and, when he was beaten by Oestigard, Liam Palmer came to the rescue with a goalline clearance.
At that stage, it looked as though Coventry might take control but then Wednesday hit back with that Lees goal from Bannan’s excellent set-piece cross to the far post.
The visitors went close soon afterwards, Westwood saving a close-range header from Amadou Bakayoko and Oestigard turning the rebound into the side netting.
Two minutes from the end of normal time, Windass had a great chance to make sure of the points when put clear by Adam Reach but the striker shot straight at keeper Wilson, with Jordan Rhodes also hoping for the ball to be squared to him in the box.
That led to seven more edgy minutes before we could finally celebrate a first win since the S6 victory over Bournemouth at the start of November.
Westwood, Palmer, Dunkley, Lees, Shaw (Rhodes 64), Harris, Pelupessy, Bannan (van Aken 83), Reach, Paterson, Windass (Kachunga 90+3). Subs. Wildsmith, Dele-Bashiru, Penney, Brown, Urhoghide, Hunt.