Sheffield Wednesday fell to their third successive defeat at Plymouth Argyle on Saturday as the home side ran out 3-2 winners despite playing for 45 minutes with only 10 men.
After a largely uninspiring performance in last weekends home defeat to Carlisle Owls manager Alan Irvine made some changes to the personnel and the shape of the team. James O’Connor and Neil Mellor returned to the starting eleven at the expense of Gary Teale and Clinton Morrison with the Owls adopting a 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation.
The changes didn’t appear to have the desired effect however as the home side got into the ascendancy early on and took the game to Wednesday. Defender Timar twice failed to hit the target from Argyle corners and Bradley Wright-Phillips was denied by Nicky Weaver on two occasions as the home side pressed on. Owls attacks were few an far between and just before the twenty minute mark Argyle took a deserved lead when Wright-Phillips teed up Carl Fletcher and the midfielder drilled a low shot past Weaver with the Owls standing off.
Wednesday offered little by way of a repost and if anything looked more likely to fall further behind than get back on terms but with eight minutes to go to half-time they conjured up a scantly deserved leveller when James O’Connor met Tommy Spurr’s cross with a well placed header.
The match then appeared to take a big twist in Wednesday’s favour in the final minute of the first half. Mellor went down after tussling with defender Bondz N’Gala in a chase for the ball 35 yards out and after consulting his assistant the referee brandished a red card for the Plymouth man.
Despite their numerical advantage the Owls found themselves behind again as they were caught cold barely 30 seconds into the second half as Wright-Phillips was largely unchallenged to head home from close range.
Argyle’s 10 men were coping comfortably enough with what Wednesday had to offer and in an attempt to rescue something from the game Irvine sent on Miller and Morrison in place of Potter and Sedgwick.
With 15 minutes to go the Owls appeared to have salvaged a point when Millers sublime volley from 25-yard out gave Larrieu no chance in the home goal.
That should have been the spark that saw the Owls kick on to try and win the game but instead the 10 men were back in front in a matter of 2 minutes. O’Connor allowed Paterson to get away from him down Wednesday’s right and his cross has headed home by Noone who out-jumped Spurr at the back post.
Despite having a man advantage for a full 45 minutes the Owls only enjoyed 50% of the possession over the course of the game and had just 3 shots on target. The defeat sees Wednesday drop to mid-table with fellow struggling promotion hopefuls Southampton to come to Hillsborough next Saturday.