Wednesday bounced back from the midweek defeat at Plymouth with a dominant 3-0 home victory over Cheltenham this afternoon.
Leaders Plymouth and second-placed Ipswich both also won so we remain in third place on 26 points, five behind Plymouth and trailing Ipswich by four points. However, Portsmouth in fourth were held at home by Fleetwood and are now four points adrift of us, with two games in hand.
Wednesday got off to a great start against Cheltenham, Josh Windass curling a 25-yard free kick into the corner of the net after just three minutes, and we really should have been out of sight in the opening half-hour as we created chance after chance.
Lee Gregory, Windass and Michael Smith all went close to adding to the lead while Cheltenham threatened through Liam Sercombe on 37 minutes but his shot was cleared off the line by Michael Ihiekwe.
However, the Owls hit straight back a minute later with Gregory inches away from making if 2-0 when his cracking shot from Bannan’s through ball came back off the post, with keeper Luke Southwood well beaten.
Windass fired over soon after half time while Sercombe was again the danger man for Cheltenham when he was just off target as the visitors began to gain in confidence after their first-half battering,
We were soon back in control, Gregory scuffing his shot from a well-worked corner routine with Bannan which allowed Southwood to save and, just as Wednesday look like having to settle for a single goal win at best, we hit Cheltenham with two quality goals in the last seven minutes of normal time.
First, Bannan thundered home another ‘goal of the season’ contender, smashing the ball into the top corner of the Kop net from 25 yards on 83 minutes.
And within two minutes it was 3-0 when Bannan’s backheel set up Fisayo Dele-Bashiru, the sub smashing home from the edge of the box to give a much fairer reflection to the scoreline after a game which saw Wednesday have 24 shots and nine on target.
Stockdale, Palmer, Ihiekwe, Henighan, Johnson, Vaulks, Bannan, Mighten (Dele-Bashiru 63), Windass, Gregory, Smith (McGuinness 76). Unused subs. Dawson, Hunt, Patterson, Brown, Bakinson.