Why this week is a big one for Sheffield Wednesday, according to key man

The Wednesday squad is injury-torn and should see the likes of Massimo Luongo and Julian Börner return to contention in time for a Boxing Day trip to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

Off the back of a first win under Tony Pulis, the respite will offer the new manager a rare opportunity to get down to coaching his players as opposed to a manic cycle of match, recovery and preparation.

“When you’re winning the tiredness eases off a little bit because you get that second wind,” Windass said after the weekend’s win over Coventry.

“The fixture schedule everyone has got is a bit mad, but we’ve got a Saturday to Saturday to recover now and hopefully we can get a few training sessions in and prepare well.

“With the squad that we’ve got there’s no way we should be where we are in the league, but the reality is that we are and in future games we can carry on creating the chances we created today and I can put them away, Pato [Callum Paterson] can put them away and the rest can.

“Hopefully we can score more goals and start climbing the league. To keep a clean sheet, too, was a big bonus.”

On Pulis’ impact at the club, 26-year-old Windass admitted that his start to life at Hillsborough had been made difficult by turgid performances.

“He’s very diligent in his work, very organised,” he said. “The last few games we’ve not been good enough in defence.

“We created chances, scored the odd goal in a couple of the games but we haven’t been able to see it out, so hopefully we improve from here.

Asked what he thinks is needed for the Owls to build on a first win in 10, the four-goal forward said: “It’s belief.

“There are good players here and we shouldn’t be were we are in the league based on the players we have here. But we don’t do anything based on paper.

“We need to keep working and hopefully the results will come.”

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