Dale were on the receiving end of all three goals at Hillsborough on Tuesday night as our Carling Cup campaign ended for another season. Full report online.
A scoreline of 3-0 would suggest that Dale were given a bit of a run around by their Championship opponents on Tuesday evening, but anyone would made the journey to Hillsborough would actually...... well I think they'd agree that's exactly what happened, as we struggled to live with the Yorkshire outfit. The Owls played neat passing football at a pace, and for long periods we were simply chasing shadows.
There's something rather odd about seeing such a vast stadium with two stands closed off, as with Wednesday officials expecting a crowd slightly lower than the 30,000 they attracted at the weekend for the Barnsley game. For a while it looked like there was three sides closed off as the home side's end looked very sparse before considerably filling up around kick off, but it transpires a turnstile error caused this issue.
There's one change from the starting eleven which impressed so much at Vale at the weekend. Scott Wiseman had been struck down with a bout of food poisoning, with Marcus Holness coming in to take his place. That, and the departure of Alfie to Rotherham, freed up a couple of spaces on the bench allowing Josh Brizzel and Denis Sherif to get their first call up. This emphasis on youth is there for all to see with ten of our matchday squad having made or expecting to make their League debut with Dale.
The game kicked off, and any hopes that we might have of Sheffield Wednesday not taking the game seriously evaporated after about 30 seconds as they went to town for us. What stood out above anything was how quick they were. After all, we're a fit side but they were from a different planet when it came to this and it was as if they were running rings round us very early on. As someone said after about five minutes, "When's it our turn with the ball?"
It has to be said that this pattern of play was not down to a lack of effort on our part. We gave it our best shot but just couldn't break them down or even retain the ball for long enough to really penetrate. There were times where we hinted that we might be able to something but we often found ourselves outnumbered or closed down. A Will Buckley effort which went narrowly past the post which was pretty much all we had to shout about in the first half.
When we went behind, there was a suggestion that it had been coming. What wasn't suggested was the quality of the strike, and if we concede a better goal all season, I'll be very surprised. A long ball up was contested aerially before heading in the direction of Wedneday's Dutch midfielder Etienne Esajas who volleyed it first time from thirty yards out straight over the head of Kenny Arthur to give Wednesday the lead. Very reminiscent of that goal Rooney scored against Newcastle a couple of years ago, but Esajas didn't kick off the move by screaming abuse in the ref's face.
The goal was widely applauded by many in the away end. Never sure whether I'm a fan of applauding opposition goals, no matter what the quality is. Guess it depends on how much a sulk it puts me in.
A couple of minutes later, it was 2-0 with the goal coming from Jamaican international Jermaine Johnson. He won the ball in the Dale box, chested it down, beat a man, then fired it low through the body of Kenny Arthur to double their advantage. No applause from us lot this time, though it was a well taken goal.
At this point, even the most optimistic bloke in the entire ground would have struggled to say it was anything other than game over, and whilst the effort didn't drop, the players on both sides tended to agree as well, and heads dropped somewhat from then on, as did the intensity of the game.
Again, there were occasions where we hinted we might be able to do something and perhaps give ourselves a chance by getting onto the scoreline. But it never really progressed beyond the hint stage, and good defensive work from Wednesday ensured that we passed ourselves out of having a chance.
Half time came but it did little change to change the way the game was going. I suppose there's only so much you can say when you've been that much against it, and you almost get the feeling that we'd have been kidding ourselves to think about getting anything out of this game from now on.
If it wasn't game over already, then given ten minutes of the second half, and it was Jermaine Johnson on the scoresheet again with another fantastic finish. For a side that play good football like Wednesday, it's somewhat odd that two of their three goals came from long balls from the back.
The long hopeful punt up front / 60 yard defence splitting pass (depending on your viewpoint), saw Jermaine Johnson ease away from the Dale defence, and with the on rushing Kenny Arthur, he dinked it over the Scotsman head with the ball bouncing into the empty net untroubled. The game was more over than it was before.
From this point on, it was a case of seeing the game out, and we made a couple of subs with Jon Shaw and Kallum Higginbotham being given a chance to impress and perhaps stake a claim for a first team spot, but there was little to change our fortunes. We perhaps had more possession than previous periods of the game, but we stopped well short of forcing a save out of the Wednesday keeper.
So the game ran towards its natural conclusion and the rather large gentleman in the home end attracted more attention than the game did, and aside from a late debut for Josh Brizzel as a replacement for the injured Holness, that was pretty much it, our dismal Carling Cup record continued with just two wins in the past sixteen years with our name very much being off the cup this year.
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