Speaking to The Sheffield Star, Sheffield Wednesday head coach Carlos Carvalhal applauded a ‘fantastic’ team performance in Tuesday’s 1-0 victory at Ewood Park over Blackburn Rovers. That victory pushed the Owls up to 7th in the Championship table, making it four wins in their last five matches.
Carvalhal also reserved specific praise for goalscorer Steven Fletcher, who scored his 100th career goal last night. The Scotland international has started life at Hillsborough in excellent fashion, and his manager is certainly hopeful that this will continue.
The former Besiktas boss insists that the former Sunderland striker puts in a real shift for his team, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed or unappreciated,
“We are happy with Fletcher and what he is doing but I’m much happier with the way he has upgraded the team. “He’s a team worker and closes the spaces well. He reacts when we lose the ball and I’m more happy about that than if he scores goals and makes assists because this is a consequence of our work.”
Although losing Sam Hutchinson to injury was certainly put a slight damper on the result, Carvalhal hailed his players for continuing their fine run of form,
“My players were fantastic. They played like a team. We are very strong and consistent. We played very well in the first half and created three very clear chances to score. One of them where we scored a fantastic goal through Fletcher.
“Our strikers were amazing in the first half. The defence starts there and Fernando (Forestieri) and (Atdhe) Nuhiu created a good impact defensively and offensively after coming on. In the second half, we closed the windows and doors. It was very dark and tough for them. We defended well.
“We had three or four situations on the counter attack and we had chances to do better. “We are all here to try and achieve points and we deserved to win against a difficult opponent.”
The Owls will be looking to make it three straight wins against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday, the first meeting between the two clubs after the play-off semi final second leg at the end of last season.
