Sheffield Wednesday's survival aspirations on life support after 12-minute Huddersfield Town attack

A 4-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town on Saturday stretched the deficit back to eight points. Wednesday boss Danny Röhl was at pains to recognise in his pre-match media engagement that the match did not define their season or aspirations, the suggestion that the 16 matches and 48 points left to play for in this campaign would leave plenty of room for a scamper towards the safety line in April. Set to the backdrop of a January transfer window that many would describe as underwhelming, with QPR also winning and with key players injured, the mood is bleak.

Going down, then? An optimist might point to another 4-0 defeat suffered by this football club for solace. The odds were further stacked that evening. That this side have not lost by a 4-0 scoreline three times since the madness of May is perhaps a more telling counter-point. For the rock-n-Röhl optimism injected into the campaign in the last months, it's always felt a brutal scrap and it continues to do so, moreso now.

A bright Wednesday start was hooked back by the home side and the two sides shared stuttering momentum one way and the other. The old sportswriting cliche demands we write at this stage that they 'traded blows' - the truth is that for well over an hour they were more like tickles. The crowd was as morose as the West Yorkshire gloom and after a while, the action on the field reflected it. For a clash of this magnitude, it all felt a bit stodgy and uninspiring.

For all that time, even the most ardent Terriers punter wouldn't argue that the Terriers didn't threaten. Not really. Wednesday allowed them in once or twice for peeks at glory but the wasted those opportunities; the very talented Sorba Thomas wearing the shin pads and attitude of Jack Grealish but in the key moments, the killer quality of Jack Duckworth. Wednesday pushed and prodded and they huffed and they puffed. The point stands around the improvements made and the results picked up after a start to the season that had them looking like a side several divisions out of their standing. But the fact is that the Xisco era existed and that they're below them by eight whole points. And it's February. There's plenty - plenty - to worry about.

It was in the 68th minute that the clash shifted from a lazy, straight-to-DVD rom-com to a horror film for the Owls. And Duckworth back to Grealish. From a position of relative calm and within the space of 12 minutes they were 4-0 down, Thomas had a goal and an assist and Wednesday had been beaten up in a flurry of punches. Quite why Anthony Musaba was marking six-foot-plenty Matty Pearson at the back post of a corner for Huddersfield's first goal is one for Mensa, quite how sluggish, open and unable to punch back Wednesday were from that stage equally so.

Pearson, 68 minutes. Koroma, 70 minutes. Thomas, 76 minutes. Koroma, 80 minutes; each one a stab into the heart of Wednesday's steadily recovering survival bid, blood pouring and faces whiter with every wound. Their murder was fast and clinical, it left its victim hapless and bemused and in dire need of medical help.

Wednesday's players trudged off the field to lick those wounds. The death of their survival mission has prematurely reported because the points Danny Röhl are there to be grasped at. But leaving West Yorkshire on Saturday evening, it looked very, very unwell.