Luke Turner looks at where it went wrong for Blues in yesterday’s defeat…
Blues held their own for most parts of yesterday’s defeat to Sheffield Wednesday but three minutes of madness lost us the game.
Rowett`s side led up to the 77th minute before Gary Hooper broke our hearts with two goals in quick succession.
The little over ten minutes remaining petered out as a deflated Blues side lost just their second game in 11 matches.
I felt like we were pretty comfortable for most of the game without Wednesday really creating anything clear cut.
We were excellent in the first half and deservedly led thanks to Clayton Donaldson, who will be relieved to score his first goal since the beginning of November.
However, he will also be annoyed with himself at the two other chances he had and missed. A first half one on one wasn’t struck with confidence and Lewis Price was able to get low and save.
In the second half, a powerful run by Jacques Maghoma led to a cut back to Donaldson who could only fire straight at Price.
Will Buckley followed up but couldn’t quite get his feet sorted out as he tapped over the bar whilst Jon Toral was behind him for a simple tap in.
Blues were on top at this point and were left to rue the missed opportunities. Yes we switched off for that three minute period but we need to take our chances whilst on top.
One nil is always a dangerous score line and so it proved. Prior to Wednesday’s two goals, Rowett decided to bring Fabbrini on for Toral.
Personally, at the time, I thought it was a strange substitution. It wasn’t really the type of game for Fabbrini to come on and work his magic.
Bringing David Davis on would`ve been the safest option for Blues to be happy with a one goal lead and shut up shop for the remaining 20 minutes.
I’m not having a go at Rowett, maybe he felt like we needed to keep attacking and so he made a positive change.
At this point, Wednesday were growing into the game and the likes of Forestieri and Hopper were finding small spaces in behind our midfield and the gaps were beginning to open.
Carlos Carvalhal also brought on Atdhe Nuhiu who had a big influence on proceedings. Blues couldn’t cope with the big man and it was as if Zlatan Ibrahimovic was playing up front for them.
In the end, their quality prevailed but, nevertheless, the performance was still very good from Blues for most of the game.
I’m not going to say much on the referee`s performance except for how did he miss the clear block on Kieftenbeld in the build up to their second and it looked like a foul on Fabbrini which would’ve given us a late penalty.
We are still only three points off The Owls who occupy the final play off spot so there is still a lot to be upbeat about.
It is important that we bounce back straightaway, starting with the trip to Rotherham next week.
We are still very much in the race for a play off spot.