Sheffield Wednesday cruised to victory over Northampton Town on Tuesday evening with another accomplished performance.
Wednesday effectively won the game in the first twenty minutes thanks to a brace of goals in a lively opening.
Jermaine Johnson, singled out by his manager for a fine performance, opened the scoring within five minutes after breaking clear. The winger has recently been on international duty with Jamaica and during that time his fitness was questioned but this does not appear to be a problem with the new season just around the corner as he came through 90 minutes.
The scoring was completed inside 20 minutes when Francis Jeffers drilled home his first goal of the summer and he spurned the opportunity of increasing the Owls tally early in the second half when his penalty was saved.
Northampton created a few half chances but failed to fully test Lee Grant and the Wednesday defence with any sustained pressure and the Owls have now kept three successive clean sheets since their return from Malta.
Michael Gray played for an hour having had to sit out some of the previous pre-season games and Akpo Sodje was also given the same amount of time before being replaced by Marcus Tudgay.
Captain Darren Purse didn’t feature but is likely to get a run out against Blackburn at Hillsborough on Saturday, Tommy Miller may not makes the weekends game but there are plans for a private game next week before the season opener against Barnsley on the 8th August. Even if Miller was to get some match practice in during the next week he would still be behind the rest of the squad in terms of match fitness and preparation.
Whilst it would be unwise to read too much into these recent wins they must be positive for the confidence of the team and the morale of the supporters. It’s certainly better than suffering demoralising defeats so close to the start of the season as some of the Championship favourites have done in recent days.