Cotterill hails ruthless Blues as Wednesday’s misery continues

Posted Sunday, February 04, 2018 by PA

Birmingham City manager Steve Cotterill said his side got they luck they deserved as they punished Sheffield Wednesday’s mistakes to win 3-1.

David Davis opened the scoring and Jota netted twice before the break. Substitute Lucas Joao scored a consolation for Wednesday, who had Marco Matias and Daniel Pudil sent off.

Cotterill said: “Our first-half performance we were really pleased with.

“Second half, probably just that little 15 minutes that we were a little bit disappointed with. When they came out, they had nothing to lose then, so we don’t need to bet the ranch and go on and get a load of goals.

“To be fair, you don’t need to go on and do any more from that point. We’ve got a big week ahead of us, another game on Tuesday where other teams are going to have a break so we didn’t need to break our necks.

“All in all, we’ve had some things go against us this season. Maybe in the second half of the season those things are going to come back and be on our side.”

Davis capitalised on a defensive mix-up between Frederico Venancio and keeper Joe Wildsmith, prodding in from close range, before Jota’s long-range effort went straight through Wildsmith.

Matias then appeared to clash with Cohen Bramall and got a straight red card and the Blues ruthlessly put the game to bed when Jota tapped in.

The Owls managed to get one back, with Joao hammering the ball past David Stockdale from the left side of the box, but Pudil received a second yellow card for a challenge on Maxime Colin.

Wednesday manager Jos Luhukay said: “It was a disappointing day for us. It goes wrong, whatever can go wrong today in the first half.

“We went two goals behind where we made very big mistakes for the first and second goal.

“After that we also had the red card. I don’t know what the referee has seen from that situation. From my position it was just a hot moment between two players but the referee decided for the red card so for us, it was very hard.

“Then, before half-time, they get the third goal.

“It was mentally not so easy to come back in the game. At half-time we spoke and said that we must stay together.

“We came back to try in the last 45 minutes and we made it 3-1. Then after we had the second red card so what went wrong today also happened in the second half.”