Sheffield Wednesday boss points to recent past to encourage virtues of playing out from the back

The champions-elect Foxes went 12 points clear at the top of the Championship table with the breezy win, a dominant first half pegged back a touch by a much-improved Owls showing after the break. The fact is that Wednesday had given themselves a mountain to climb after a mix-up between James Beadle and Will Vaulks just a few yards of their goal-line, allowing Abdul Fatawu to put the home side ahead.

The Owls have had good recent results in playing out from the back, with Röhl pushing the message that there has to be a degree of 'taking rough with the smooth'. He said: "In the win over Birmingham, we started the two goals building up from the goalkeeper and then everybody is celebrating, today we had the mistake.

"It is about finding the balance, we have to make the decision. From the outside it is always easy as a manager or as a fan to say 'Oh, what are they doing?' We will go forward and take the positive things from the game in that second half."

Teenager Beadle stepped into the side as a keeper capable of playing with the ball at feet and has started their last five league matches on the spin. The Brighton & Hove Albion loanee recovered from the error to make an excellent second half save to deny a Fatawu second half, with Röhl making clear he has no intention of dwelling on any mistake, preferring to focus on dusting down and moving on.

"It's about decision making," he said. "After three minutes, they press, they have the front foot and are doing well in this case. We cannot speak and speak about every mistake. It is about learning, improvement as a team and this is an important key point. We have to lift up our teammate as a group because everybody makes mistakes. When you make mistakes as a goalkeeper it is always difficult, if you miss a chance up front then nobody talks about it. I protect my players. The second half was much, much better and this is what we will take."