Gum-lobbing Danny Röhl moments from fury with Sheffield Wednesday praised for Swansea City win

An away performance deserving of all three points saw Michael Smith once again raise from the bench to make a goalscoring impact, with stand-in skipper Josh Windass capping an all-action performance with a well-taken assist. That was in the 66th minute and while this season Wednesday have seemed to revel in late drama both in their favour and against, all seemed to be ticking along nicely as they looked to see out Swansea’s threat.

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That was until debutant substitute Ibrahim Cissoko was denied a more than plausible penalty and then in the 94th minute the Swans poked the ball into the Owls net to signal what seemed to be a second points-stripping injury time concession inside five days. Röhl certainly thought so, spinning angrily in the technical areas and flinging his chewing gum across the Welsh second city in rage.

Thankfully, the would-be equaliser was correctly scrubbed off with Jay Fulton flagged offside.

“I thought again? Again this situation? It cannot be possible again?” Röhl grinned. “This is football, my players said immediately offside and I was happy but you never know. One minute before there was maybe a pen, we didn't get it and I thought they got the equaliser. But this is the Championship!”

A back-and-forth first half saw Wednesday take the better of the chances before opening up their attacking threat in the last half hour of the game. The substitutions of Smith, Stuart Armstong, Cissoko and later Nathaniel Chalobah contributed to a game that seemed to tick along to a gameplan, with Röhl praising the effort of his players in carrying out an important road victory.

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The scars of The Hawthorns and a 96th-minute winner for West Brom at the weekend, he said, came to their benefit as they closed out the game with more purpose.

“It was fully deserved, this win,” he said. “In the second half we had so many pressing moments, we adjusted in the half-time and it worked well, a lot of ball-winning situations. Straight after the 1-0 we had a good scoring opportunity. Then the game management, we learned from the West Brom game. In the last minutes we brought the time down and when the home team has just four shots it shows we have progressed as a unit.

“It was a good one. This is how we have to work, this is how we have to play away with clean sheets and these are all good things.”