Middlesbrough vs Sheffield Wednesday: The Manager's Corner

Sheffield Wednesday fell to a narrow defeat to Middlesbrough as their winless run extended to 38 games this week.

An early goal from Morgan Whittaker after he capitalises on a mistake from the Owls was enough to secure all three points for the promotion-chasers on Wednesday night, but the visiting side will have felt a bit aggrieved not to have gotten anything from the game.

An impressive cameo from young teenager, Will Grainger, was a talking point, but now Wednesday have just two more games to gain the three points they need in order to avoid finishing in minus points.

Here’s some of what the two men in charge had to say after the game:

Kim Hellberg

“Massive credit to the opposition,” he said. “Like I said before the game, they have battled through this type of situation they have been in. They have taken a point from the champions away from home and had three in a row (unbeaten) and came without fear.

“Massive credit to them, but credit to our boys to be strong defensively in that last 10 minutes. I think we should have killed the game off earlier in that situation. But it is always going to be tough to do that when you have not won in a while…

“It was not our best day, absolutely. But we created chances to be ahead with more goals. We had very short rest between games and there were some leggy players, you could see that. Football is a mental game and you just need to get that win.

“You could see the whole stadium was nervous, everyone is nervous at the end and there is a natural reaction as we needed to try and win bad and I was very impressed with how the players battled through it.”

Henrik Pedersen

As quoted by The Star, the Owls boss said, “With intensity we played the last 30 minutes because they are so strong on the ball and you have to invest everything, otherwise you have no chance to press them. And how the boys did that, to be so extreme in the last 30 minutes and win a lot of balls, but also with confidence.

“Again, we played on the ball and I've said that before, but the last pass, when do we have to speed up in the last 30 metres? When do we have to be calm? The last crossing, but today we had more players in the box, we had better quality in the crossing, so it's a step forward. But, yeah, still disappointed that we didn't get a point today. “

Meanwhile, on Grainger’s cameo he added, “Since Christmas, Will has grown a lot and is not so much a kid but more a young man now. You can see he has more and more power in his actions, defensively and also his discipline on the ball – it was a good performance from him.

“It was strong, his balance inside was very good, tactically he was very good so it’s well done to the young man.”