Sheffield Wednesday manager Danny Rohl is looking up the Sky Bet Championship table after securing an impressive 2-0 victory over Stoke at Hillsborough.
Goals from Josh Windass and Callum Paterson after Di’Shon Bernard saw red gave the Owls the three points, while Potters striker Tom Cannon also had his penalty saved by James Beadle.
Rohl said: “After the red card of course we had to change the structure for the second half but we didn’t want to go too defensive. We stayed offensive in the midfield because I felt if we had the ball we could hurt Stoke.
“Callum (Paterson) never gives up. He has worked really hard to get minutes on the pitch and I’m pleased he got his goal.
“James (Beadle) made a great save from the penalty and put in a big performance too. Some top individual performances but credit goes to my whole team today.
“When we looked at how Stoke play we saw they like to play football but they played a lot of long balls today and the conditions made this tough for us.
“We are always talking about development and improvement and Di’Shon (Bernard) will learn from the red card.
“We had to take advantage when we had momentum and we scored in the right moments. All in all I’m very happy for my team.
“Thirty-two points after 22 games is not so bad and we’re just two points off the play-offs. We’re looking up and who knows? Maybe we can do something here.
“It’s been a tough week as there have been a lot of rumours about me but we were fully focused on today.
“We will be training on Christmas Day and then we will travel for a tough away game at Middlesbrough.”
Stoke manager Narcis Pelach said his players started the game well but lost their heads in the second half.
Pelach said: “I think performance-wise in the first half we were good. We were robust, we were solid and we didn’t concede any big chances. We forced Wednesday into a lot of mistakes and this was shown when they got a man sent off.
“Tactically I think we got everything right and I was happy. Then something changed in the second half; we conceded seven minutes in and we started to chase the game.
“At the moment everything is going against us. They have two chances in the second half and score two goals. We competed well for part of the game but we lost our heads in the second half.
“I don’t want to make excuses but the referee has affected the game a lot today. There was a clear handball from (Barry) Bannan. We didn’t get the decisions today.
“Tom (Cannon) had a big chance from the header which he usually would score but the keeper made a great save. It was not his day today but he will go again.
“The players are disappointed with how the game went. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for themselves; I want my players to fight for me. We have a really strong connection and I know that they will.
“If things still don’t go our way we will fight again until it changes because we know things can change so quickly in football.”
