Sheffield Wednesday: How Huddersfield Town's hard work in training failed to stop Steven Fletcher

Cowley, who together with his brother and assistant manager Nicky was widely linked with the Wednesday job before the unveiling of Garry Monk last week, said his side had dedicated time to nullifying the threat of Fletcher during training.

His goal came from a Kadeem Harris cross after just ten minutes as Monk got his Wednesday tenure off to a winning start.

Cowley said: “We’ve done lots of work without the ball this week and we were disappointed with both goals.

“We worked hard on trying to stop crosses and we knew Fletcher would be a threat on the back post.”

The in-form Fletcher, who recently expressed his desire to stay at Wednesday ‘for as long as possible’, has led the line for the club throughout the Championship season and now has four goals to his name.

It came from a free header just seven yards out and Cowley said Huddersfield’s defending of the goal wasn’t good enough: “You just can’t leave Fletcher, you have to root Fletcher. You can’t let him get a free jump because if he does he can be very dangerous.”

The 40-year-old former Lincoln City boss admitted he has a difficult job ahead of him, describing the mentality of his new club as ‘hurting’.

“We just played too slow,” he said. “We made it too easy for Sheffield Wednesday to get behind the ball and get organised.”