Sheffield Wednesday: Thinking time after Bristol City horror show will do Owls good insists Carvalhal

That is the opinion of Owls chief Carlos Carvalhal, who has backed his side to bounce back strongly from Saturday’s 4-1 thrashing away to Bristol City.

Wednesday were, after a bright start, blown away by the Robins, falling two goals behind inside the opening 13 minutes.

Lee Tomlin’s penalty before half-time killed off any hopes the Owls had of launching a comeback as Carvalhal’s men suffered their heaviest defeat of the campaign.

Jonathan Kodjia, a menace throughout, added a fourth after the interval, coolly slotting home the hosts second penalty after Joe Wildsmith, a late replacement for Keiren Westwood, had tripped Bobby Reid.

If you had watched Wednesday as a neutral, you would never have guessed that they had gone over six hours without conceding a goal on road before Saturday’s contest.

But Carvalhal is confident the Owls will learn from their drubbing.

“In this case, it is probably not a bad thing we have to wait a little to get it out of our system,” he told The Star. “It gives us time to breathe a little and prepare carefully for the next game with energy.

“With our fans at Hillsborough, we will give a good answer in the next two important games we have got.”

At the final whistle, Carvalhal trudged onto the pitch, gathered his players together and delivered a team-talk in front of the 1,400 plus fans who travelled south.

“My message was very clear,” he said. “We lost one game. We lost three points but in the second half, we played like ourselves.

“I told them to give a wave to our fans because they deserve it. They had travelled from far away to see the game and I think they understand the message that our team will react very fast to the next game.

“I want everybody to stay together. The message was ‘we are here and we are with you, our fans are with us and we will react for the next game’.”

Wednesday entertain Ipswich Town on Saturday knowing maximum points will all but end the Tractor Boys slim hopes of gatecrashing the play-offs. Ipswich trail the Owls by eight points with five matches left.

“Everybody prefers to play at home,” stressed Carvalhal. “It will be nice to be back at Hillsborough.

“All the time at home we play with an extra player because our fans are unbelievable in the way that they support the team.”