Steven Fletcher grabs injury time winner as Sheffield Wednesday beat Charlton to claim first win in eight

The goal was the Owls’ first at the famous old ground in 2020 – their first in open play there since December 7 – and delivered their just desserts for a probing display.

Garry Monk has spoken a lot of confidence in recent weeks and his players will surely have arrived with an uptick in that regard after a much improved performance at Birmingham.

But any glimpse of swagger took sustained persuasion under the Hillsborough lights. Regardless of that triple salvo in the Midlands, nobody will have been more aware than the players that they hadn’t scored at HQ in this decade.

It’s harsh choice of phraseology, but an accurate one all the same and one that was surely burrowing into the mind’s eye of players and supporters alike. That nervousness around the ground took some shaking – for all the Owls’ efforts.

And it was perhaps down to that desert-plain dry spell in front of goal that despite some handsome build-up play, chances to shoot came and went early doors with only Fernando Forestieri seemingly willing to try his luck.

At times it looked as though the former Watford man was on a one-man mission to break down the Addicks’ five-at-the-back defence, picking up the ball in pockets of space, jinking jostling and trying things together with occasional help from support acts Jacob Murphy and Barry Bannan.

And that was the trio that looked the liveliest threat on a night that, before Fletcher’s introduction before the hour, was lacking that little bit of match-settling quality in the final third.

Murphy’s pace cost Charlton left-back Alfie Doughty a yellow card early on and Forestieri, on his longest run in the side since the 2017/18 season, forced the first save of note with a drilling effort to Dillon Phillips’ front post after 19 minutes.

Even the best chance of the first half fell from Forestieri’s failure to connect with a Connor Wickham knockdown – Kieran Lee arching back on himself to head over from six yards.

For 93 long and frustrating minutes it all just lacked that bit of make-it-happen. Fletcher’s importance to Wednesday’s has been laid bare since injury on that trip to Brighton – his absence has been more of a roadblock than a speedbump – but Lyle Taylor’s to Charlton is perhaps even more obstructive.

The Addicks had won 54 per cent of matches he has played this season and just 14 per cent of those without him – his 10-week thigh injury coincided with a snakes and ladders run of form that delivered them from early days play-off up-starts to relegation battlers.

Within 10 minutes he’d won a free kick and two corners and you wonder whether his pace and directness would have provided an eye-catching match for Dominic Iorfa, missing from an Owls line-up for the first time since Monk took over in September.

Fletcher, his opposite man in the narrative, replaced Harris on 55 minutes and strode up alongside Connor Wickham to make a pairing more as at-home on the doorstep of a nightclub as it is on a football pitch.

He forced two classy saves within 90 seconds of his introduction to lift Hillsborough to its feet after two months on the canvas. Wickham is still unfit – moreso perhaps than even his Scottish partner – but the two of them are quite a proposition.

Sat on the shoulder waiting for a break over the top, Taylor’s threat was largely neutered as the Owls helped themselves to the lion’s share of territory – aside from a crashing 65th minute effort that smashed the bar and a late turn-and-shoot that Tom Lees blocked excellently.

A shift to 4-4-2 represented a shift back to Monk’ most familiar preference at HQ and with Fox back fit, you have to think it’s one he’ll stick with at Hillsborough as winter slowly turns to spring.

The Owls defence looked balanced and barring a couple of hairy moments – Borner’s first-half nutmeg on Macauley Bonne for one – the Iorfa-less back four held out with few dramas.

Going forward they were as dangerous as they have been at Hillsborough for some weeks. Wednesday had 24 shots at goal. Late on Wickham headed wide, Lees headed over, and chances to get the three points they deserved were spurned. Again. Until Fletcher.

This is a big job, the Owls boss so often and quite rightly reminds us, and the elephant in the room was surely the huge blocks of empty seats dotted across the home stands.

But those present witnessed another large building block out of their rut. Derby are next and then Manchester City. All of sudden, who knows?