Sheffield Wednesday overcome offside debate to take lead role away from rivals Plymouth Argyle

It’s a gem of a quote attributed to many of football’s greats, from Bill Nicholson to Danny Blanchflower, Bill Shankly to Brian Clough.

Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore, his Owls players and the majority of the 33,442 crowd who witnessed a 1-0 win to dethrone Plymouth Argyle as League One leaders on Saturday could probably argue that point.

For when George Byers netted from Mallik Wilks’ cross late in the second half, it seemed to cap a near-perfect afternoon for the Owls.

The players hugged and celebrated in front of a delirious Kop, relief poured out of three sides of Hillsborough and the electronic scoreboard replayed the ‘goal’.

But watching from the sidelines too were referee John Busby and his assistant, who deemed that Lee Gregory - who didn’t make contact with the ball, and seemed to move out of its path - was offside, and to use that vague expression ‘interfering with play’.

“The referee said Lee was obscuring the goalkeeper,” Moore explained.

“After a long, really lengthy discussion, it turns out they picked that up from the video replay instead of coming to the decision themselves. For 30 or 40 seconds it appeared it was a perfectly good goal.

“Obviously having seen the video, I think it is the right decision. But it came through that after everyone had finished celebrating what we thought was a second goal.”

Owls defender Liam Palmer added: “The less said on that the better from my side.

“I don’t think you can watch the screen and change your decision but I won’t say much so I don’t get in trouble.

“Thankfully it didn’t matter in the end.”

Frustratingly for most people in football, the offside law is open to interpretation.

Put aside for the moment, that match officials should not be using video replays in the stadium to reach a decision - thankfully VAR has not filtered down to the third tier of English football - this was another incident which make a mockery of the rules.

Think of Marcus Rashford in the Manchester derby, where he was clearly offside chasing the ball - and interfering with play far more than Gregory did on Saturday - yet that goal was allowed to stand after VAR intervened.

The game would be far easier to understand, if you had a black and white rule. If you are on your feet any anywhere near the ball when it leads to a goal, you are deemed active and liable to be flagged offside.

Hence, why Owls boss Moore thought it was the right decision to chalk off Byers’ goal. But you know next week there will be a similar incident which the officials will interpret differently, and the goal will be allowed to stand. Consistency is what we all want.

It was just one of numerous strange decisions from the officials, who struggled to keep control of this top-of-the-table clash.

After injuries to Plymouth’s Dan Scarr and Michael Cooper inside the opening half hour, it was understandable to add on eight minutes of stoppage time in the first half.

But quite where the referee found 10 minutes to add on in the second half was a head-scratching moment. Unless he took time out as he watched the video replay of Byers’ ‘goal’ with a bucket of popcorn.

“I don’t know where the 10 minutes came from either, I thought it was a World Cup game,” added Palmer. “But we managed the game well.”

And that the Owls did. Once Callum Paterson - the forward asked to play right wing-back open Saturday - netted from Will Vaulks’ cross after seven minutes, there seemed to be an inevitiblity about the result.

This is a Wednesday team who have not been beaten since losing at Plymouth in October - 22 games without defeat - and Saturday equalled a club record with their 17th clean sheet of the season, and with another 18 games remaining, the Owls are likely to surpass that landmark number.

On-loan defender Aden Flint - making his first start for the Owls - almost made a dream start, but his close-range shot was parried by Cooper onto the post.

Marvin Johnson should have done better with a second-half volley, but ballooned it into the Kop, while Argyle threatened when Bali Mumba cut inside before drilling a shot wide of Cameron Dawson’s left-hand post.

Substitute Wilks looked threatening when the game became stretched, as Plymouth hunted an equaliser to extend their own unbeaten away record to 13 games without defeat.

But even with Mr Busby’s late intervention, it could deny Wednesday top spot on an afternoon when the only negative was a hamstring injury suffered by Paterson.

Sheffield Wednesday: Dawson, Iorfa, Flint, Palmer, Paterson (Hunt 57), Byers, Vaulks, Bannan (Adeniran 86), Johnson, Windass (Wilks 73), Smith (Gregory 74). Unused substitutes: Brown, Dele-Bashiru, Stockdale.

Plymouth: Cooper (Burton 34), Wilson, Scarr (Lonwijk 14), Gillesphey, Edwards (Hardie 46), Houghton, Matete, Mumba, Tyreik Wright (Callum Wright 74), Azaz, Waine (Cosgrove 46). Unused substitutes: Earley, Randell.

Referee: J Busby (Oxfordshire).