Sheffield Wednesday: Barry Bannan wants Owls to rectify slow starts

Midfield dynamo Barry Bannan insists it is not part of Wednesday’s strategy to let opponents take the initiative in matches.

“We plan to go out there and start quick,” he said. “Sometimes teams can stop that.

“But I think it’s probably down to ourselves more than anything. It’s hard to touch on why it’s happening.

“We have all the right intentions of going out there and blowing teams away straight away but sometimes it doesn’t happen.

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“I think it has happened too many times this season where we have come out too slow and given ourselves too much to do.

“But we are working on it and trying to get better and I think we will eventually turn that around and come out the other end better.”

When asked if the team have a psychological problem in starting matches well, Bannan replied: “Not for me personally. It’s not in my head when I go out on the pitch. I don’t know if it is with the other players.

“We are a team at the end of the day so if anyone is getting criticised it should be us. There shouldn’t be people getting singled out. We are in it as a team and we will win and die as a team. We don’t go out there planning to start slow but it is just the way things are happening at the minute and we are trying to get better at it.”

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If Wednesday are to get back to winning ways at Norwich City this evening, Bannan has called on the team to tighten up defensively.

He said: “It’s alright saying we want to play attacking football but if we are not scoring and you are leaving yourself open and teams are scoring easy goals against you, it’s really hard to go and attack. It’s about finding the balance.

“In the first season, we were attacking and free-flowing but we were winning the ball back higher up the pitch so teams couldn’t break on us.

“We haven’t really found the right balance yet this season. We are maybe too attacking in some games and then too defensive in others.

“It’s hard but we are trying to find the balance and we are working on it and hopefully we will get it right in the next couple of weeks.”

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