Jon Newsome's new Sheffield Wednesday column: All signs pointing towards a classic against Brighton and Hove Albion

Football is a hotbed of clichés and the last seven days at Sheffield Wednesday can be summed up with '˜a game of two halves' and '˜goals change games'.
Sam Winnall made an impressive debut on Saturday against Huddersfield TownSam Winnall made an impressive debut on Saturday against Huddersfield Town
Sam Winnall made an impressive debut on Saturday against Huddersfield Town

Following a couple of fortunate draws, in my opinion, in their last two fixtures against Preston and Wolves, the visit of local rivals Huddersfield Town was always going to be a tough task.

The Terriers have had a fabulous season so far under the guise of David Wagner and currently occupy a play-off spot, in fifth place ahead of Wednesday.

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In all honesty, I felt that the first half at Hillsborough on Saturday emulated the previous handful of games, Newcastle apart, where we were slow in possession and - as I touched on in last week’s column - seemed to be taking the safer option.

On the other hand Huddersfield looked extremely comfortable on the ball and created the far better chances in the first half.

Carlos Carvalhal decided to change things at half time and give a debut to new signing Sam Winnall - more of that later.

For the first five or ten minutes of the second half, not much seemed to have changed and then out of the blue, Ross Wallace scores a thunderbolt 30-yarder that raised the roof.

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You could see the confidence suddenly coming back into the players and they soon became far more positive in their attitude to the game.

uch more akin to the performances of last season and what we have seen in patches this year.

And Winnall? He was outstanding!

He worked hard, made some great runs in behind, his touch was good and the lad looked supremely positive in everything he did.

It was an assured a debut as I have seen for a long time and he looks very comfortable both at this level and with his teammates.

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He was very vocal and at one point I witnessed him pulling Forestieri to one side and gesticulating where he wanted his runs to be made.

I love that, the new lad not frightened to let one of the club’s star men know what he thinks.

Eventually Wednesday saw out the game and it was good to see Forestieri get on the scoresheet again, even if it was from two yards... hopefully giving his confidence that little bit more of a boost.

When we play with a high tempo and are positive we look like we can give anyone a game.

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Next up are Brighton, the best team I’ve seen at Hillsborough this season, and it has all the recipe for a fabulous match tomorrow night.

To be honest, they gave us a bit of a lesson at Hillsborough and hopefully, we can get at them and be as positive as the final 30 minutes on Saturday.

It was sad to hear of the passing of Graham Taylor last week.

I was never fortunate enough to be in his company but he seemed to be a thoroughly down-to-earth and wonderful man who gave so much to the game and will be sadly missed.

Jon Newsome is the owner of prestige, sports and performance cars specialists, Automarques

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