I must admit I had a pretty bad feeling about the game prior to kick-off. With both Paul Anderson and Chris Cohen missing following injuries sustained against Derby, and Wes Morgan still on compassionate leave, I thought that perhaps if we could get away with a point, it wouldn't be too bad, so to take all three of them is a real shot in the arm, and what's more we have gone four points clear of the relegation zone, which incidentally now contains Derby, who lost their match at Birmingham!
I think we really could have done without Doncaster's shock win at Sheffield United, but as long as we keep winning then that is all that matters. There was a good result for us with Norwich and Southampton drawing their game, so we are now pulling away from the Saints and are now six points clear of them with a far superior goal difference.
We didn't play particularly well against Wednesday, and when they went ahead they deserved it, but their lead didn't last very long as Nathan Tyson equalised just seven minutes later following a superb run by Gareth McCleary. Our quest for three points was helped considerably when Wednesday had their one-time multi-million pound Arsenal striker Francis Jeffers shown the red card for a two-footed lunge on Joe Heath five minutes before half time.
Even though Wednesday were down to ten men in the second half, they still managed to dominate the midfield at times, but fortunately our defence, despite missing key personnel, wasn't too bad and managed to keep them at bay, although there were one or two hairy moments in the goal mouth. As the half wore on, though, we did improve and when Luke Chambers powered home a header from a corner fifteen minutes from time for his first goal of the season, the home crowd breathed a sigh of relief, and we managed to see the game out and claim another vital three points, which sees us climb another place in the table to 17th, and thus drag Barnsley into the survival fight.
Although he will have been thrilled with the win, Billy Davies will surely have recognised the urgent need to sign new players. We picked up a few knocks during the game with Tyson, Rob Earnshaw and Ian Breckin all amongst the walking wounded, and if we lose those three, it really will be awful. Joe Garner rather stupidly got himself booked for petulant behaviour so misses the Derby game in the FA Cup as it was his fifth yellow card, and if Earnshaw and Tyson are going to be missing any matches with injury, it is extremely worrying. To lose Anderson, Earnshaw and Tyson at the same time would be a killer blow. Let's hope that the latter two's injuries are not too bad and just knocks and nothing more. We don't have very long to bring in reinforcements with the transfer window closing next Monday. We have done well to get where we are now with such a wafer-thin squad, but we may not be so lucky with the difficult run of games we have coming up.
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