Why precious win was more important than milestone moment for Sheffield Wednesday’s Liam Palmer

Not only did the 32-year-old Owls defender chalk up his 424th game for his boyhood club – which saw him move into the top 10 appearance makers in the Hillsbrough club’s proud history – but Palmer also helped the Championship strugglers return home from Millwall with a precious three points.

Goals from Ike Ugbo and Anthony Musaba saw Wednesday cut the gap to safety, Millwall sit just outside the bottom three, to just four points.

“We started well, two really well-taken goals, then second half it was about digging in,” said Palmer. “Not pretty, but we don’t care we got the three points.

“The manager has spoken to us, put various graphs up, how it’s not just a straight line to success. You are going to have peaks and troughs. We have experienced that.

"We closed the gap a few months back, didn’t quite happen but we have shown a good resilience as a team - and individuals - to keep controlling what we can control.

“Nothing else matters apart from us winning, we can’t control what other teams do.”

In a gritty match between two struggling teams, it was the quality of Musaba which proved the difference. The Owls had only scored seven away goals all season before the weekend, but Musaba showed trickery to beat two defenders before ending his run with a cross which picked out Canada international Ugbo at the far post.

And when Barry Bannan produced an incisive pass to pick out the run of Musaba, he stroked the ball beyond goalkeeper Matija Sarkic.

Not even a stoppage-time red card for substitute Ashley Fletcher – for two quickfire bookings – could take the gloss off Wednesday’s afternoon.

Manager Danny Rohl said: “It was a difficult one, we know that coming here is not easy. When I looked at the game against Ipswich, the first 15 minutes I thought Millwall were very strong.

“I think that was the key today, we spoke about making the difference between home and away, I think at home we have had a lot of good performances and good results. It was a clear message today, make the difference in every duel and win the second ball.

“It was great – I would describe today as adult football, if you know what I mean?

“The last few weeks we have spoken about performance away. Today was about taking results, we did well as a team and showed as a team what we have to do in our situation.”

For Palmer, his milestone game will be remembered for a clean sheet and a rare away win.

He has spent his entire career at Wednesday since arriving at Hillsborough as a seven-year-old – apart from a loan spell at Tranmere Rovers in 2012-13.

“To get my 424th appearance and cap it off with a good performance – and the three points, more importantly – it’s a nice feeling. It’s a real honour and not something I take for granted. I’m happy but the three points are more important. We need as many as we can get between now and the end of the season.”