Blue and white with a dollop of yellow - Sheffield Wednesday sashay their way to victory over Birmingham City

In a match that was preceded by a marigold message to the boardroom, the displaying of flyers by thousands protesting against the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri in front of the Sky television cameras, Sheffield Wednesday got down to business and battered the blues. As the fog dipped below the floodlights, the sinking feeling of Wednesday's last fortnight drifting in its place into the South Yorkshire air.

While the winds of change sought from those holding flyers seems seems something of a distance away, the blizzard of change long since experienced in recent months at pitch-level was abundant. Five changes were named by Danny Röhl from the Huddersfield humbling last time out in the league - only two starters featured at Wembley. The win justified Röhl's decision to flip over to his B-Side in the FA Cup defeat at Coventry City in the week and then some. A defeat would have unimaginable, a draw not worth much. A win? It gets them back in the game.

Ian Poveda might not quite carry the accent of your regular Colombian international, but his swaying, swaggering sashay through the Birmingham box on 15 minutes delivered the air of a South American street baller. The Leeds loanee sent Lee Buchanan twisting in the South Yorkshire breeze like a crisp packet and with the flick of a boot Ike Ugbo was picked out with pace to poke the ball home. He had a second the other side of half-time, wrestling his way highest at the back post to nod home a fine Marvin Johnson cross from Barry Bannan's sumptuous nudge.

For all the understandable chatter of a disappointing January - a month that in no small part will have lit a little fire beneath the pre-match protest - that two transfer window additions had combined so beautifully for their first league goal in February was a twist not lost on some. That Ugbo registered his first and second goals in Wednesday colours against a team The Star understands turned down the chance to sign him was an irony further swollen given it looked for a while as though Birmingham would nick the race to sign Poveda. Football plays these tricks.

If the new boys are to get the headlines with Johnson's name underlined for a trademark assist on his return to the side, an italic bold print for Barry Bannan, please. The elder statesman was able to find space and punish the Birmingham fans who so readily scorned him for his Aston Villa parentage time and again, his slip-in to find Johnson a pleasant hark back to the rinse-and-repeat damaging of League One defences in seasons gone by. He bossed the game with the ease of a semi-pro at Tuesday night six-a-side. You'd suspect a few WhatsApp messages might run back and forth from the second city this weekend.

There were hairy moments, but perhaps too few to mention. Ugbo could have had a hat-trick on the night, a first-half chance tickling the side-netting. Djeidi Gassama ran an underrated race tucked in from the left, Di'Shon Bernard, Akin Famewo and Michael Ihiekwe shepherding the middle of defence as if to boot the headache of eight conceded goals in their last two over the South Stand. A clean sheet was just reward for a defence that did their jobs with the bit between their gnashers, Scott Hogan's effort the closest the visitors came to breaking Beadle's banks.

Where does it leave Wednesday? On the pitch they sit five points shy of the safety places heading into the weekend, hoping the likes of Southampton and Norwich do their bit by leaving their line of the accumulators unscratched against the Owls' fellow relegation battlers. As they say round these parts, "Tha never knos." Such is the nature of football, a cause that looked to have been left stranded in West Yorkshire now looks curiously tempting once more, Bannan's pre-match mantra of 'don't write us off again' looking prophetic.

Off the field? It's anyone's guess.