A largely youthful Wednesday side went down 4-0 to a more experienced Accrington squad in their EFL Trophy match at Hillsborough this evening.

With an important League One home game against Plymouth on Saturday and the Owls already assured of a place in the knockout stages of the Trophy, manager Dave Challinor chose a team comprising of mainly academy players while the visitors fielded a much stronger squad.

Sean Fusire missed an excellent chance after 22 minutes when he turned the ball over the Kop bar from six yards out. However, it  was Accrington who dominated for the majority of the half, Connal Trueman producing a series of saves before Stanley were rewarded with a quick double strike shortly before the break.

Trueman’s excellent stop kept out a shot from Shaun Whalley on 38 minutes but the breakthrough came from the ensuing corner, following a goalmouth scramble that saw Wednesday failing to clear their lines more than once before Josh Smith eventually managed to hook the ball home.

Worse followed three minutes later when Charlie Brown fired low into the corner of Trueman’s net from the edge of the penalty area.

It was largely the same story in the second half with Accrington dominating proceedings before Wednesday briefly burst into life with a couple of decent efforts in close succession.

With 11 minutes remaining, sub Charlie Liddell’s angled drive was pushed away by James Rogerson and, almost immediately, the Accrington keeper pulled off an even better save to tip over Denny Oliver’s shot from outside the box.

However, any faint hopes of a Wednesday fightback were ended on 86 minutes when Charlie Warren steered home Accrington’s third goal from inside the box and Charlie Caton completed the scoring four minutes into added time to seal a deserved win for the visitors.

It is a victory that also means Accrington leapfrog the Owls to run out winners of Group A, so earning them a home draw in the first round of the upcoming knockout stages.

For Wednesday boss Challinor, his thoughts are now fully focussed on the visit of Plymouth to S6 on Saturday for his first home league game as manager, with the Owls looking to end a run of just one win in our last eight League One matches.

Trueman, Fusire, Weaver, Otegbayo, McGhee (Hatfield 64), Poland (De Oliveira 75), Thornton, Oliver, Durun (Onoh 64), Akpobi (Liddell 64), Brown (Kay 46). Unused subs: Bramhall, Langford. Att: 5,472.