Sheffield Wednesday comeback king knows teams are worried about them

Championship teams are setting up differently for the challenge of taking a result against Sheffield Wednesday – and are being more cautious in their approach.

That’s according to Owls comeback king Marvin Johnson, who has jumped back into the side having been left unregistered by previous manager Xisco to play a monumental role in their resurgence in the Championship survival scrap. Johnson has piled up four goal involvements in his last four outings and has spearheaded an attacking threat from the left-hand side that was missing during his absence from the team. His resurgence makes him a poster boy for the way Wednesday have gone about giving themselves every chance of staying in the division this season, with the appointment of manager Danny Rohl sparking a run of results few would have seen to be possible after a horror start to the campaign.

“You could see from day one there was no messing about,” Johnson said on Rohl’s impact. “He knew we had ability, it was just putting it all together with the way he wanted us to play, then getting us to play with confidence. “You can see the togetherness in the team. Everybody wrote us off and you can see when we’re playing teams now they’re a lot more cautious about playing us.

It’s not just an easy three-pointer for them. You can see they’re setting up a little bit differently because they know what we can do.” A last-gasp equaliser from Jeff Hendrick in a thoroughly deserved 1-1 draw with table-topping Leicester City in November served as the kick-start to a run of results that sees Wednesday riding high in the division’s form tables.

It set a spirit within the camp that they could mix it with the league’s more flush outfits, Johnson believes. “The standout performance was probably against Leicester and after that teams were starting to think a bit more about us,” he said. “We could have won that game. We’re not worried about anyone, we’re just worried about ourselves.

We knew what we had to do from the start and we always had the belief it wasn’t a relegation battle for us. “At Hillsborough with the high press we put on teams, even against Hull, who are a good pressing side you could see there were times when they were nervous and we forced them into a long ball and got control of the game again. That’s been a key factor, especially at home.

We’ve got to keep that high press and keep going.”