Liam Palmer admits Sheffield Wednesday must revert back from little change supporters have noticed

Onlookers have commented on a shift in passing style in recent weeks – with parallels drawn with the absence of George Byers – with Wednesday not quite controlling games as they did so often in a long and winding unbeaten run that ended abruptly earlier this month.

Stats suggest that in moments the Owls have been more careless with the ball and have gone longer earlier, preventing the sort of steady build-up that so often ground teams down in the middle period of the season.

A run of four without a win was extended by a comeback 2-2 draw at Cheltenham Town in midweek, after which Moore admitted to The Star that his players were presenting as ‘too eager’ on the ball – something not of his directive.

It’s something the Owls have spoken about and one vice-captain Liam Palmer clearly senses on field, touching on it in a frank and open press conference ahead of this weekend’s visit of Lincoln City.

“When you’re on that run and you have that momentum, you have that belief that you’re unbeatable and you use that as a positive,” Palmer said.

“When that all of a sudden isn’t there anymore, it’s about pulling on other things that bring you success. Things like controlling the game, having more prolonged possession.

“We’ve gone away from those things and it’s been more frantic but in my experience it’s about having a calm and a patience and not going to rush because of how bad you want to score when you get the ball back.

“That has been evident in the last few games, we’ve been so desperate to get the ball forward because we’ve got two big strikers we want to feed. We have to remain calm and collected with the ball.

“With and without the ball we can be a lot calmer, a lot more precise and a lot more detailed in the way we go about things.”

Now 14th on Wednesday’s all-time list of appearance holders, Palmer has experienced a whole host of different changing room dynamics at S6 and rates this current cohort as a group more than capable of reversing their current form blip.

In front of a home crowd for the first time in a while – their last three games were played away from home – he backs them to get back to winning ways against the Imps.

“We’re an experienced group,” he said. “We just need to concentrate on each game at a time as we have done all season. We need to pull on that experience a little bit, there are certain games in the season where maybe we can manage the games a bit better.

“We have expectations, not only from the fans but we put that on ourselves. From the position we were in a couple of weeks ago, there is a frustration at the opportunity we had to pull away and now that’s not the case.

“But there is still a lot of football to be played and a lot of twists and turns to come.”

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