Birmingham City 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday: Barry Bannan gives Owls win at Birmingham
- Published
Barry Bannan's penalty just beat Neil Etheridge to give Sheffield Wednesday a vital three points
Sheffield Wednesday picked up a second win of the season to end Birmingham's unbeaten start.
The Owls enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges, with home goalkeeper Neil Etheridge making a fine stop from Adam Reach and Josh Windass hitting the crossbar with a free-kick.
Barry Bannan gave the visitors a deserved lead from the penalty spot after Callum Paterson had been fouled in the area.
Blues came closest when Owls defender Joost van Aken cleared Jonathan Leko's effort before debutant Jack Marriott fired just wide for the visitors.
The hosts thought they had scored a late leveller but Scott Hogan's celebrations were cut short by an offside flag.
A draw would have been harsh on Wednesday, who missed numerous chances in the first half before former Aston Villa man Bannan gave them the lead after the break.
This was a first defeat of the season for Aitor Karanka's men but they are also winless since the opening game of the campaign.
Sheffield Wednesday started 2020-21 with a 12-point deduction but have begun with just one defeat from their first five to give them hope of climbing away from danger.
Blues head coach Aitor Karanka:
"Today we had different players and we tried to be more offensive, but the lack of intensity - especially in the first half - made it difficult to attack and difficult to defend.
"We need to start games how we did at the beginning of the season, because when we do that, we have the intensity and we created more chances in 10 minutes than we have in three or four games in a row.
"I don't want to complain because it would be easy to say it wasn't a penalty or we could have scored one or two, but I need to know why we're making those mistakes.
"We're going to try to sort it out as soon as possible because this league is unforgiving."
Wednesday manager Garry Monk told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"I thought we dominated the game and were very unlucky not to have a second or third goal there.
"Today when we had that six minutes when we had to dig in and throw our bodies on the line Joost (van Aken) typified that with a block that he did.
"We deserved that today, we were dominant, very unlucky not to win by more and when we had to show the other side and dig in, we did that very well and got the clean sheet and three points.