Antonio hoping for Royals pleasure

Michail Antonio faces former club Reading today but has little to boast about to his former team-mates as Sheffield Wednesday move into November still looking for their first win of the season.
Michail Antonio faces former club.Michail Antonio faces former club.
Michail Antonio faces former club.

A crazy return of eight draws from their opening 12 Championship games sparked one tongue-in-cheek Tweet this week that the Owls “have more draw(er)s than Ikea”. It is hard to argue, and an ugly statistic that last season’s top scorer Antonio is determined to remedy, starting today.

“We can’t believe it,” said Antonio. “You cannot imagine not winning a game, 13 games into the season. We have done it, it’s a record, and we just have to battle on and, hopefully, not extend that record.

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“We believe in our ability. We believe we are good enough to be in the the play-offs, a promotion team. We believe, we know, that we are going to come out of these troubled times.

“When you are at the bottom things don’t go your way. On Saturday (against Barnsley) we should have a penalty – the guy basically punched the ball – but things are not going to go your way at the bottom, that’s what happens in football.”

Antonio was top scorer at Hillsborough last season with nine goals and the 23-year-old believes he should have picked up more than his two strikes this campaign.

“I just love scoring. The last couple of games there have been opportunities where I have missed so I just need a goal to get me started,” he said.

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“I scored against Middlesbrough then we had an international break and the same happened after I scored against Ipswich, another break. I just want to score and not get hit by a two-week break so I can get on a roll.

“It’s been frustrating. If you score goals, you win games. This season we haven’t got more than one goal in a game (other than a 2-2 draw with Millwall) so maybe if I was scoring we would be winning more games.

“It’s all ifs and buts really. It’s a massive part of my game and I feel like I should be scoring goals. Hopefully, on Saturday, I can get one.

“We are getting opportunities but just not taking them, if we can be more clinical we are going to start winning.

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“We have drawn eight games this season where we had the opportunities to score and win, but didn’t take them.

“We have scored in every game, except for Doncaster, so if we had kept clean sheets we would have won.

“We just need to keep believing in what we are doing. You don’t score goals every game by chance, you score and keep clean sheets by playing well.”

Reading plucked Antonio out of non-league football and gave him his chance as a full-time professional.

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But there will be no divided loyalties today when he lines up against the Royals, who are fifth and eyeing a return to the Premier League.

“I have got a lot of memories from my time at Reading,” said the Owls winger, who has stayed in contact with many Royals players. “I owe them a lot, they brought me from non-league and taught me the trade.

“I give thanks to everything they have done but I come up against them this weekend and will try and get three points for the team.

“You keep a soft spot for every different club you have been at. I have been out on loan at five different clubs, so every club I have been to I keep tabs on them.

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“But now it’s a different situation because Reading are in the same league. I don’t want them to do better than us, so here’s hoping we pick up. On Saturday, we need to kick-start our season and get going.”

Antonio admits Hillsborough is an “intimidating” ground to play at when Wednesday are struggling, but insists the players have to show their character.

He said: “It’s a very intimidating place to play, with 24,000 fans, when things aren’t going right you can feel the crowd get a bit upset.

“But we get paid to perform. All we can do is perform well and get a result. The fans deserve a win, they have been there every week, showing their belief in us.”

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Antonio came close to scoring in the 1-1 draw at Barnsley last weekend, but a volley from six yards out was turned away by Reds goalkeeper Jack Butland.

The winger, who has had loan spells at Colchester, Southampton and Cheltenham, believes a change of fortune for both himself and Wednesday would have seen him miscue his shot and it trickle over the line.

Asked whether missed chances like that at Oakwell haunt him, Antonio replied: “It will bug me for a day, but then you just have to shut it out. It’s a new week.

“You can’t have it in the back of your mind. If you get in front of goal and you’re thinking about that previous miss it’s going to throw you.

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“On the pitch, all you can focus on is the present, not the past or future. It’s about what you’re going to do.

“I hit it too cleanly. If I had mis-kicked it, it would have gone in. He just spread himself and the ball hit him. I have watched it back on TV, I definitely connected it with the ball too well.

“I wish it had hit my shin and trickled into the corner,” he reflected.

“That’s life and football, and how it’s going. On another day, it will go in.”

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The Owls trained on the Hillsborough pitch on Thursday and Jones has worked on his players being more clinical in front of goal this week.

He points to the fact Wednesday have a decent defensive record (18 goals conceded in 12 games) and have only lost four games in the Championship (a record bettered only by the top seven clubs), as reasons why a couple of wins could swiftly turn the club’s fortunes around.

“The one thing we haven’t got is the wins,” stressed Jones.

“A couple of wins under our belt and the whole look of the table changes. All of a sudden the draws we have got look good draws, but we have got to get wins.”