Alan Biggs: When you get to see THIS Sheffield Wednesday in the flesh, you're going to be impressed

The new Sheffield Wednesday, that is. Not a team as yet that’s likely to thrill you or be guaranteed to win. But a team.

That’s all the supporters demand in essence. “A team to be proud of,” promised manager Garry Monk in his darkest days last season.

He was talking much further down the line than this and the Owls are still missing a vital ingredient up front, but unmistakably the pride is back.

It had to be back in the team before the supporters shared it. I think it is. Examples? Well, it was for their talent on the ball that Wednesday signed Izzy Brown and Josh Windass; it was their tenacity off it that impressed me as much in last Saturday’s goalless home draw with Watford.

This was a good point, make no mistake, against a fancied team just down from the Premier League, with plenty of players of top-flight calibre still in their ranks.

It was a surprise just how much the Owls were able to dictate the first half. Monk was less than impressed with the second, when his team failed to settle on the ball, but strangely this was when I was most convinced that the club had turned over a new leaf.

Front front to back, the side battled out some reward and the more creative players showed the other side to their game.

And, on the ball, the Owls were noticeably less reliant on talisman Barry Bannan for creativity.

Yes, they failed to work Ben Foster in the way Cameron Dawson was extended by Watford. Yes, the lack of a powerful line leader - Kenneth Zohore? - was pretty glaring. And the delivery needs working on too.

But as a unit there was never a trace of a fear that this one would crumple. No goals conceded in four competitive games (up to Fulham away in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night) is a big statement.

It is not coincidental on the evidence so far.

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