‘Tenacious’ debut Darren Moore’s silver lining on night that Sheffield Wednesday had “no excuse”

The Owls stepped out of the FA Cup at the fourth round stage thanks to a 1-0 defeat crow-barred between hugely important matches against title rivals Plymouth and Ipswich and in which Moore made 10 changes to his side.

Imposing defender Alimi-Adetoro came off the bench at half-time while Fusire, just 17, caught the eye in the right wing-back position.

Asked why now for the teenager, Moore said: “His performances have been excellent and I thought he could step up. The 65 minutes he did show? He can be really, really pleased with his performance.

“I thought he was tenacious in the tackle, his work on the ball was good and on the ball he brought a calmness, his passes were easy but effective and I was so pleased for Sean.

“He’s been training with us and every time I’ve seen him in training I’ve been impressed.

“Then there was big Adam who came on and got into the game. He was really competitive, he has the size and stature to deal with the game and he has a pass on him. He did really, really well.

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“I was pleased for those two, that was the highlight of it, for me.”

Moore expressed his anger at the performance levels elsewhere on the pitch and intimated strong words had been expressed both at half-time and in the changing room at full-time.

“[The number of changes] are no excuse,” Moore said. “All those 10 changes, we work every single day in training and they know what is expected.

“I know matches and training are totally different but the anticipation and the game readiness had to be better from them as a group and as individuals.

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“The positives from the game are the two young lads making their debuts from the academy. They can be really pleased with their performances on what was a difficult game.

“For the changes I made, they will benefit for the match minutes, but we won’t see that until the latter parts of matches.”