Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl explained the mindset that saw his 10-men prove too good for ailing Stoke City at Hillsborough.
Goals from Josh Windass and Callum Paterson after Di’Shon Bernard saw red gave the Owls a 2-0 success, while Potters striker Tom Cannon had a penalty saved by James Beadle.
It has been a difficult week for Wednesday with rumours rife that Rohl was leaving to take over at Premier League Southampton, but the German insisted his focus was always on his own team and Stoke.
He said: “We took the game to Stoke despite going down to 10 men, and we got what we deserved.
“After the red card 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.
“When we looked at how Stoke play we saw they like to play football, but then they played a lot of long balls today and the conditions made this tough for us.
“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.
“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.”
Addressing the Southampton speculation, ended this afternoon when Ivan Juric was named as the new Saints manager, Rohl added: “It’s been a tough week as there have been a lot of rumours about me but we were fully focused on today.
“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.
“We will be training on Christmas Day and then we will travel for a tough away game at Middlesbrough.”
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