Charlton Athletic boss gives Sheffield Wednesday ‘favourites’ tag – admits Hillsborough frustrations

The Owls took all three points on Saturday evening thanks to a late goal from Tyreeq Bakinson, but they were made to work hard for their victory against a Charlton side that put them under pressure for large parts of the game.

Garner, despite the defeat, found lots of positives – and also said that he fully expects Wednesday to be favourites for promotion this season.

As quoted by London News Online, Garner said, “A really strong performance, so many positives in there. We just need to be a bit more clinical. We got punished for one moment where we didn’t defend our box well enough. Other than that, a really strong performance at one of the most difficult places to come, for sure. I’m really pleased with the overall performance and just disappointed we didn’t take anything from the game.

“You’ve only got to look at their squad – they have huge strength in debt and a good-sized budget here. They’ll be favourites (to go up) for sure. To come and play as well as we did and to have deserved at least a point, is a really positive sign for us.”

He also went on to say, “The bravery and character of the players, tactically how good they were, for probably the first hour – really, really good. So many positives and we have to take confidence from that. To come here and play in that manner against a team like Sheffield Wednesday. we have to have that disappointment that we haven’t taken anything from the game but we also need to take huge amounts of confidence going into Tuesday [against Plymouth at The Valley].

“They’ve had six shots, two on target. To restrict them to that here, with the firepower that they’ve got was excellent. It was a goal out of nothing, it wasn’t from pressure. We know they’re strong from crosses. We didn’t quite fill the goalframe well enough and we’ve been punished for it. We need to make sure performances like this in the future get points.”

MORE: Wednesday ratings - Windass chomps at the bit as subs change things for Owls