Sheffield Wednesday's Darren Moore the merrier as Owls close the gap with 4-2 victory over Burton Albion without hitting the heights

After two games with a combined 39 Owls chances were drawn 1-1 came a 4-2 win which restored the gap to the top two to three points without playing that well and despite conceding two sloppy goals.

So if the criticism of Lincoln City and Bristol Rovers was that football is all about results, could they ignore the scoreline, six-match unbeaten run and league table to slate the performance against Burton Albion?

Of course some did but the black-and-white world of football fandom overlooks so many shades of grey.

Moore is neither managerial messiah nor tactical dunderhead, but if you want perfection, League One is the wrong place to look.

Barry Bannan left no doubt which side of the fence he sits on.

"It's a results business and we went out there to get three points, whether it was 1-0 or 4-2," he said.

Grey was the order of a dank day at Hillsborough where the hosts managed to scored four, hit the crossbar twice, have a couple more chances cleared off the line and still leave the old place feeling a bit hollow.

"We should be beating them,” muttered one fan as he passed the press box, speaking for many. It is hard to please those who – not unnaturally considering the gulf in resources – expect victory.

It is much easier to please Moore.

"I'm all about positivity," he said at full-time, as if we had not guessed. "I never harbour on negativity. Even after the two draws – we hadn't lost.

"On Wednesday we didn't win the game but we didn't lose the game. I always look to the performance and did we have a chance of winning?

"It was, 'Just continue doing what we're doing,' because if you change, what for? We probably played worse at Cambridge and won, and better against Lincoln and Bristol Rovers and came away with draws."

Any home fan 20 minutes late on Saturday would have got lucky.

They would still have seen Marvin Johnson volley Wednesday's first shot way off, and Bannan pick up the rebound from the second a minute later and hit it in off the crossbar.

When Michael Smith converted a penalty four minutes later, hit so well Ben Garratt diving the correct way was irrelevant, it seemed the show might finally have started.

Yet it was nearly half-an-hour of football later before Leeds-born Mallik Wilks’s first league goal since joining from Hull City, recreating his Football League Trophy strike against Burton to curl in a beauty.

Rusty from a pre-season and August too much about transfer negotiations, Wilks was one of five largely eyebrow-raising changes plus a different formation as he and Callum Paterson flanked Smith in a 4-1-2-3.

It was an act of brinkmanship for an under-pressure manager – when is Moore not? – but he seems to take perverse enjoyment from them.

"I see them (his players) morning and afternoon and their problems, I see the happy moods, I see the levels they're training at, the data from the games," he said. "Hence why I made some calculated decisions."

Three-nil up and comfortable enough that even Bannan was okay about dragging his bruised backside off, the game became one-way yet the scoreboard froze.

Smith's header was somehow scrambled behind, then yellow-shirted defenders seemed to slide in from everywhere to stop him steering a shot in. Paterson suffered the same fate, then headed onto the bar.

Fisayo Dele-Bashiru brought sanity, converting Wilks's lay-off. Briefly.

The Owls kindly stood back so Sam Winnall could score a third goal of 2022 against his old club with a diving header and Tom Hamer outjumped them to add another.

With Lee Gregory smacking a penalty against the woodwork in between, it made for an unnecessarily uncomfortable finale.

Of course Moore found plusses.

"It serves a purpose from a learning point of view," he argued. "It didn't hurt us in terms of the result."

Bannan admitted "It was probably shakier than we expected towards the end but quite comfortable overall,” adding: "It's a long week."

At a club this big, almost every week is. Fans ride every wave and panic at every fall.

"I don't get too high in the highs and too low in the lows and my job is to stay consistent in my approach," commented Moore.

Nuance is much less fun, but sometimes you do need it.

Sheffield Wednesday: Stockdale; Palmer, Iorfa, McGuinness, Johnson; Bakinson; Dele-Bashiru (Vaulks 87), Bannan (Byers 68); Wilks (Hunt 87), Smith (Gregory 69), Paterson. Unused substitutes: Dawson, Mighten, Windass.

Burton Albion: Garratt; Hughes, Mariappa, Butcher (Winnall 58); Hamer, Powell (Keillor-Dunn 59),Oshilaja, Taylor, Smith; Adeboyejo (Kamwa 81), Onyango. Unused substitutes: Lakin, Carayol, Sinisalo.

Referee: D Rock (Hertfordshire).