Danny Röhl spoke with a sense of mixed emotions when discussing Sheffield Wednesday’s 4-0 defeat at Burnley on Friday evening – and maintained his message on what the Owls are aiming to achieve first and foremost.
Wednesday offered plenty between the boxes once again, taking on more shots and producing more box touches than the high-flying hosts on an evening Röhl’s side tallied an xG of 1.38 to Burnley’s 1.43 but left red-faced having been on the end of a scoreline hammering.
Few who watched the match will suggest the score matched the flow of the game, with some Burnley journalists suggesting to The Star that Wednesday’s first half performance was as good as any they’ve seen against the Clarets this season. But it rattled as a familiar tale after similar stories in what has been a positive campaign – Wednesday were unable to strangle the killer moments despite so much in-game promise.
It was great. Until it wasn’t. They were undone by quality perhaps they don’t possess. There were elements of ‘Groundhog Day’ sentiments.
A philosophical Röhl said: “Until the first conceded goal, we saw a brave Sheffield Wednesday with good opportunities, good pressing moments. I cannot remember that Burnley had a good moment in our box, we defended really well, really brave and we kept the ball well, we attack the line. I watched in the last days a lot of Burnley’s games and I cannot remember that a team created so many good opportunities against them.
“But at the end it is 4-0, they people who don’t watch this game will think there is a big difference. There is a big difference in both boxes and this is the reason why Burnley fight for promotion and we fight to achieve our 50 points at the moment.”
Asked whether this squad is capable of making the ‘next step’ stage of play-off contention heading into the final weeks of the campaign, Röhl reiterated the first goal set is to reach the 50-point marker and go from there. And he set a fresh challenge to his side heading into a run of games that show no let-up – their four matches leading into the international break starts with next week’s clash with Sunderland and ends with the welcoming of Sheffield United.
“There is a reason why I said before that our first small goal is 50 points,” he said. “After that we can look for more. The second thing that I said before was that we should not look so closely to the table now. We can drop, we can come closer. My big wish and the big demand of my team is that we win a big game.
“Next Friday we have the next chance at home under the lights against a strong next opponent. But we have to invest and we must match the opponent in both boxes. If we can do this, we have a chance.”
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