'Strong' - Henrik Pedersen outlines Sheffield Wednesday positives following pre-season win vs Preston
Sheffield Wednesday secured their first win of pre-season on Saturday with a 3-2 triumph over Preston North End.
Manager Henrik Pedersen was pleased with several aspects of Sheffield Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Preston North End in their latest pre-season friendly on Saturday afternoon.
The Owls, who announced their ninth signing of the summer transfer window on Sunday morning by confirming the arrival of midfielder Billy Mitchell, edged a 120-minute contest at the Lilywhites’ Euxton training ground, winning by the odd goal in five.
Wednesday’s third friendly of the summer was split up into two 60-minute halves, and Pedersen’s side found themselves 2-0 up by the interval following goals from Jamal Lowe and summer signing Louie Barry.
Including six new signings in his starting XI, Pedersen, who appeared to deploy a 4-2-3-1 formation, named a side that was packed with experience and first-team operators for the first hour, whereas the second half saw younger members of the squad, except for goalkeeper Joe Lumley, take over.
Despite being pegged back to 2-2 via goals from Alfie Devine and Callum Lang, Wednesday got their noses back in front when youngster Reece Johnson got himself on the scoresheet to seal the Owls’ maiden win of pre-season.
Reflecting on a solid afternoon’s work, Pedersen told the Owls’ in-house media: “It was fantastic. One thing is to win, and we love to win, but the performance behind this win [was good].
“What we have worked on at St George’s and what we have done this week, first of all, [is that] we look very fit and we were very, very well organised defensively. We had a lot of intensity in our pressing, and we had a lot of situations where we won the ball. We also had some good transitions, and we scored two goals after winning the ball back.
"The next level is to be more vertical when we win the ball. Offensively, for a big part of the first game, which was 60 minutes, we were very dominant. But having the ball and then speeding up play is the next level.
"When Barry [Bannan] had an open body, how can we make more deep runs and opposite runs so we can speed up the game more? But again, the balance was really good, so when we had less of the ball, we were strong in the counter-press.
"So, in general, it was a very balanced performance and a very, very strong culture. To score two goals and not concede in the first 60 minutes was strong."