Sheffield Wednesday tasted defeat in our final pre-season friendly of the summer as we welcomed Spanish La Liga side Villareal to Hillsborough on Saturday.
Full time at Hillsborough as Wednesday are defeated 3-1 by @VillarrealCF in our final pre-season friendly… Report and reaction coming up #swfcLIVE pic.twitter.com/IfsaaPPkJk
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) July 28, 2018
Goals from Gerard Moreno, Ramiro Funes Mori and Karl Toko Ekambi ensured victory for our visitors on the day but Liam Palmer did bag a consolation for fans in attendance at the game and we did have early opportunities but with Adthe Nuhiu wasting his chance, they took charge.
Again, the simple fact is it’s pre-season, results take a secondary place but it would’ve been nice for confidence purposes to take the win and end our schedule on a high as we now prepare for the coming Championship kick-off against Wigan Athletic next Saturday.
It is what it is though and plenty will look at the team sheet and pay more attention to the fact Keiran Westwood was once again missing with their being a partial disagreement between him and Jos Luhuaky as to his level of fitness.
📽️ A look at @LiamJPalmer's first half goal v @VillarrealCF…
Owls trailing 2-1 and we're ten minutes into the second half #swfcLIVE pic.twitter.com/zIWjBbxcbq
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) July 28, 2018
The positive is Steven Fletcher stepped up his comeback from injury as he got more minutes into his belt, but we have to see if that benefits us on the pitch or in a transfer but he did hit the woodwork in the match.
Wednesday:
Wildsmith (Dawson 46), Palmer (56), Lees (Thorniley 61), van Aken (Nielsen 71), Pudil, Bannan (Fox 61), Pelupessy (Jones 61), Hutchinson (Matias 46), Boyd (Reach 61, Forestieri (Joao 46), Nuhiu (Fletcher 61).
Att: 10631.
Luhukay himself told the Official Site post game.
“The results in pre-season are not important to me. It is about the fitness and the performance. I was pleased with a lot of what I saw today but I think Villarreal are a very good side who play a different kind of game, a European game.”
