'Massive respect' - Ipswich Town ace makes admission about Sheffield Wednesday's style of play
Sheffield Wednesday were edged out by Ipswich Town at Hillsborough on Saturday afternoon, losing 2-0.
Ipswich Town captain Dara O’Shea has claimed Sheffield Wednesday are a better team than their league position suggests after he and his teammates were forced to work hard for a 2-0 win at Hillsborough on Saturday afternoon.
The Tractor Boys, who were hoping to capitalise on promotion rivals Coventry City and Middlesbrough slipping up earlier in the day, got the job done via goals from substitute Iván Azón and Jack Clarke inside the final 15 minutes.
Moments after he had spurned a great opportunity to give Ipswich the lead, Azón expertly turned home Ben Johnson’s cross to put the Tractor Boys 1-0 up before Clarke, five minutes later, covered a penalty after being tripped by Sean Fusire.
Ultimately, a gulf in quality, particularly inside the final third, made all the difference, meaning Ipswich left Hillsborough having climbed to within two points of second-placed Middlesbrough. Nevertheless, they were forced to work hard for all three points with Wednesday, not for the first time recently, putting up a respectable fight against one of the promotion chasers.
And in the opinion of O’Shea, Wednesday provided the difficult test that he and his teammates anticipated, admitting the Owls “play a really nice and dangerous style of football”.
O’Shea compliments Owls after hard-fought victory
“They are where they are in the league, but they don’t play like they’re there,” said O’Shea, as quoted by TWTD. “Massive respect to them for that.
“It’s not easy when you don’t have much to play for in the season, but I really respect the way they came out today and played. They’re a really tough team, they’ve got some massive threats and they play a really nice and dangerous style of football.
“We always knew that today was going to be difficult, it wasn’t going to be easy. It was about getting that first goal and it took us a long time to get that.
“I’m proud of how patient we were. There are a lot of games where we haven’t been that patient and we’ve tried to rush things and got frustrated.
“We knew today was going to take either a magic moment or late on in the game to get in front, so I'm proud of how we understood that and how the game went.”