Birmingham City 4 Sheffield Wednesday 1: Four-goal blast from Lingard sees Jones issue apology to Owls fans

City's four goal Jesse Lingard celebrates much to the disgust of Owls Jeremy Helan.

On-loan striker Jesse Lingard was the architect of the Owls’ demise, scoring four goals in his first-ever start in a league game.

After what had been a quiet start between two lowly clubs the game exploded with Lingard, who hails from Warrington, displaying his outstanding skill in front of goal.

The feature of Lingard’s performance was his eye for a goal and his ability to spot an opening.

Very little had been seen of Lingard until the 20th minute when Chris Kirkland made a fine save to keep out a Chris Burke effort. Unfortunately for Kirkland he could only parry the ball to Lingard rushing in at the far post.

The goal transformed Birmingham and none more so than young Lingard, who displayed the enthusiasm of youth with clinical finishing.

This was demonstrated when he collected a through-ball from Wade Elliott and slid the ball under the body of the advancing Kirkland.

Birmingham’s fans could hardly believe what they were watching as Lingard put the icing on the cake with his hat-trick in 13 minutes as he collected a pass from skipper Paul Robinson and scored with a raking shot as he cut in from the left.

Lingard could now do nothing wrong and six minutes into the second half he was in position to collect a pass pulled back by Burke to score with another rasping shot.

Wednesday managed to pull back a goal after 66 minutes when Kamil Zayatte headed home a Stephen McPail free-kick.

A visibly-exhausted Lingard was then substituted in the 71st minute and was hugged by an appreciative Clark.

“This is probably the worst performance I’ve seen from a Sheffield Wednesday side,” said an angry Jones afterwards.

“The goals we gave away were hard to swallow. I can only apologise to the fans for the performance we put in.

“They should go to the fans themselves and apologise.

“We began brightly but we then switched off. In a matter of a few minutes the game was all over. There too many wrong decisions and too many people not on their game. He (Lingard) had a dream debut, but we allowed him to impress.”

Birmingham City: Randolph, Bartley, Burn, Robinson, Spector, Elliott, Adeyemi, Murphy, Burke, Green (Lovenkrands 83), Lingard (Ferguson 71). Unused substitutes: Novak, Doyle, Shinnie, Brown, Caddis.

Sheffield Wednesday: Kirkland, Spence, Roger Johnson, Zayatte, Reda Johnson,

Palmer (Nuhiu 30), Prutton, McPhail, Helan, Antonio, Maghoma (J Johnson 60). Unused substitutes: Semedo, Coke, Maguire, Dawson, Llera.

Referee: K Hill (Hertfordshire).