VIDEO: Practice pays off for Sheffield Wednesday's Tom Lees

For over an hour at Hillsborough, the second-from-bottom Addicks frustrated Carlos Carvalhal’s play-off hopefuls.

But Lees ended the Addicks’ brave resistance, rising highest to meet Ross Wallace’s inch-perfect set-piece with a firm header which gave Nick Pope no chance.

“I try to mix my runs up, but that (set-play) was something Carlos wanted to work on this week,” he said. “Charlton have been conceding a few so we looked to exploit that area. The manager has been in my ear all week.

“It was a great ball in by Ross and I managed to get on the end of it. We worked on few things at the back end of the week in training and luckily it paid off.”

It was the defender’s third goal of the campaign.

Lees said: “Goals are something I am trying to add to my game. I try and contribute as much as I can. I don’t have a goal target. Obviously, clean sheets are the main thing for me. But defenders do need to contribute goals, because that’s what successful teams have, centre-halves who chip in.

“Last season, we didn’t really score that many goals, but it seems to not be a problem this year.”

The Owls’ fourth shutout in their last five outings leaves them just three adrift of equalling a club-record 17 clean sheets in a league season.

Lees said: “We are not too far off the clean-sheet record of last season, which is quite surprising because we do play open, attacking football.

“You associate free-flowing attacking football with being soft, but the boys at the back don’t want to lose what we had last season.”

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