Garry Monk '99 per cent' satisfied as Sheffield Wednesday are denied win at the death
Sheffield Wednesday showed great spirit to twice come from 1-0 and 2-1 down to lead 3-2 at St Andrew's, only for Scott Hogan to snatch a 3-3 draw in stoppage time.
“I’ve got mixed feelings sitting here, we have to deliver wins and we didn’t do that but the performance level against a team in form was very pleasing,” said Owls manager Monk, whose team has won once in the Championship – at Leeds United – since Christmas. “Ninety-nine per cent of that performances was what we wanted.”
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Hide AdBoth sides wasted good chances to score even more, but Monk was rightly proud of the fight his team showed after a dreadful start.
Jacob Murphy put through his own net at a sixth-minute corner as the Owls looked all at sea in the early stages but they stayed in the game throughout, Barry Bannan equalising, then Fernando Forestieri converting a penalty after Lukas Jutkiewicz found the net in a frantic first half.
Ivan Sunjic and Kristian Pedersen missed good chances to put Birmingham back in front before the interval but it was Wednesday who scored next, Murphy making up for his own goal with one in the right net, smashing the ball past Lee Camp in the 66th minute.
As the second half went on, the Blues looked to be running out of ideas and Camp had to make good saves from Murphy and substitute Connor Wickham, so Hogan's late goal after the Owls failed to deal with a long ball, was even harder to take.
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Hide Ad“It’s gutting in terms of the end of the game but overall we were more like ourselves – fight and passion, showed character and there were a lot of good things,” Monk reflected.
“We had chances to finish the game off but we all know, if you don’t take those chances, you can get punished. But we were much more like ourselves and we can take a lot from the game.”
Birmingham are now unbeaten in 11 matches.
As well as a first point in three matches to move back up to 12th in the table, the Owls were also able to welcome back top-scorer Steven Fletcher and full-back Morgan Fox after injury. Both came on as second-half substitutes.