Wednesday kept up our challenge at the top of division one with a comfortable 3-0 win over Morecambe at Hillsborough this evening.
Plymouth stay in first place, two points ahead of us but having played a game more, after their 3-1 win at Oxford. We remain in second with Bolton – 5-0 winners over MK Dons – now in third place, trailing us by six points and with ourselves having two games in hand, while Ipswich dropped to fourth after a goalless draw at Bristol Rovers, leaving them eight points behind Wednesday and having played one game more.
We couldn’t have got off to a better start against relegation-threatened Morecambe tonight with Barry Bannan putting us ahead after just a minute, coolly slotting the ball home from 12 yards after a pull back on the right by George Byers.
It continued to be one-way traffic with Josh Windass just failing to connect with a header from Bannan’s cross and then Windass testing keeper Connor Ripley with a low 20-yarder.
However, Windass did get on the scoresheet midway through the first half, Bannan’s excellent pass finding Marvin Johnson down the left, his centre was flicked on by Michael Smith and Windass turned the ball home from almost on the line.
Morecambe rallied briefly with Michael Mellon forcing a save out of Cameron Dawson and then Jensen Weir sent a 20-yard free kick over the bar and into the Kop.
Wednesday, who had dominated the first 45 minutes with10 shots to Morecambe’s three, continued to control the game after the break but lacked pace, urgency and a cutting edge and it was 73 minutes on the clock before we created an effort of note, Bannan curling a shot narrowly wide from just outside the box.
Then, with the game seemingly drifting to a deserved 2-0 win for the Owls, we added a third when Fisayo Dele-Bashiru burst through the Morecambe rearguard down the left-hand side and his cross on the run was seemingly headed home by Windass from six yards, with defenders claiming he had handled the ball.
The victory stretched our unbeaten run in the league to 18 games and also set a club record of 18 clean sheets in one season.
Dawson, Adeniran, Palmer, Flint, Famewo, Vaulks, Bannan (Bakinson 76), Byers (Dele-Bashiru 46), Johnson, Windass, Smith (Shipston 89). Unused subs: Stockdale, James, Brown, Alimi-Adetoro.
annan cross