Toil, keeper busts and a thing of wonder: Sheffield Wednesday are out of the drop zone

A deserved, battling, vivacious 3-1 win in a stop-start game of will at Blackburn Rovers was enough to take advantage of the results on Saturday and lift the Owls into 21st place. A 1-0 defeat at home to Preston North End on August 19 2023 had sunk Wednesday heads beneath the surface. And after swimming against the tide, after getting caught in the riptide and threatening to drown on so many occasions, they can take in a sharp breath of air before diving back into the water once more.

There are two matches to go. And for all that toil, survival is well and truly in Wednesday’s hands.

In a first half scrappy and lacking in any sense of fluidity, two moments of excellence standing out like the proverbial sore digit. Sammie Szmodics was able to wrestle himself in behind the Wednesday defence to level-up Wednesday’s opener, racing on and finishing with the confident gait of a man about to bury his 31st goal of the campaign.

But before that came what will surely be Wednesday’s goal of the season. With Rovers goalkeeper Ainsley Pears out of position and off his line, a bouncing ball shaded into Josh Windass’ atmosphere at an awkward angle. To drag his body across it and make some sort of connection was one thing, to fizz it between the crossbar and an air-grasping Pears another entirely. Injuries frustration or no injury frustration, it is those moments that show Windass’ immense quality; if this Owls squad had more of it you’d rather wonder whether they’d be fighting loftier battles at season’s end. They showed enough on the day, a discussion not for now.

Others show quality in spurts. To say Anthony Musaba had a frustrating first period would be putting it, well, honestly, but there were jinks and turns and moments of devilment that showed why opposition managers have picked him out for individual mentions when discussing the Owl threat this season. His bending, reaching cross to find Marvin Johnson at the back post opened the match up was of surgeon-level precision with crowbar brutality. Johnson’s finish - he who was deemed unusable for the first miserable strains of the ‘season beyond saving’ - was another display of excellence in a do-or-die moment.

They’re fighting. Whatever happens, that afternoon at the Riverside set to the pavement, this is not a Wednesday squad who can be questioned on battle. That the Johnson goal came as a result of a thunderous Will Vaulks tet-a-tet was fitting on an afternoon that saw Barry Bannan lead the charge with a double sliding effort and Ike Ugbo leave a challenge with Donre Tronstad with the pepped-up demeanour of a teenager who had just won his first Wetherspoons brawl.

Each lunging challenge was roared not only by the immense away following - the sight of Blackburn Train Station taken over pre-match was one to behold - but by the players on-pitch. Comments by Röhl in an interview with a national newspaper this week pointed at the number of players coming to the end of their contracts as a reality that could have impacted desire. It’s testament to those at pitch-level that it doesn’t appear to be.

In the scrap and the tug-of-war and the stress of it all was the threat that Johnson’s 58th-minute goal would usher in a painful half-hour of nail-chewing anguish. But then, six minutes later when nobody was looking, it was three.

If survival will see supporter requests for Danny Röhl statues to be built in the Hillsborough vicinity, then surely a bust for Aynsley Pears. The Rovers keeper, walkabout for the Windass opener, may have had a bobble to thank for another red-face calamity; Dom Hyam’s serene back-pass slicing from his bootlaces and into his goal to spark pandemonium in the 7,321-strong away travelling behind him. On St Sheridan’s Day, arise Sir Aynsley. Every goalkeeper has them.

Blackburn played like a side that knew a point would probably do for them. That, in the end, they probably won’t go down. There was battle on their end but all threat came through one man and his leveller aside, Wednesday exposed their lack of quality elsewhere. It was a deserved win. With two to go, it’s in their hands. You’d have got some very good odds of that when they were swimming deeper and deeper beneath the surface.

Danny Röhl has spoken about Wednesday trying to achieve a ‘thing of wonder’ by retaining their Championship status this season.

To stare into the away end in those final moments was a thing of wonder indeed. This football club and it’s mad brand of madness. Bloody hell.