Time To Curb Our Confidence

Wednesday's 5-0 thumping of Hartlepool United yesterday sent out a message to the rest of npower League One - let's hope it's the right one.

The Owls have been one of the favourites for promotion straight back to the Championship ever since our relegation from the second tier of English football back in May, that goes as standard for any side dropping divisions.

But the positive transfer coups for boss Alan Irvine, along with keeping, so far, all-but-one of last season's squad at Hillsborough, had gone some way to boosting Wednesdayites' confidence ahead of the new season.

That confidence always comes under some scrutiny before the season gets underway, and for Wednesday, had done in the early stages of the season, despite an unbeaten start to the campaign.

But the promotion favourites tag came right back and slapped itself on the Owls following their demolition of Hartlepool yesterday afternoon - it sent a message out to the rest of the division that Wednesday are here to win the division this term.

Make no mistake, everyone, including Owls boss Alan Irvine, will have been delighted with the performance, and the result, up at Victoria Park.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that the Owls boss won't be getting carried away too much following the five-star showing.

In a strange way, yesterday's result will send out a wake-up call to other League One clubs, if they didn't know already, that Wednesday mean business this season.

It will wake the so-called 'bigger' League One clubs up to the fact that they need to hit top gear sooner rather than later, the sides like Southampton, Charlton Athletic and Huddersfield Town.

And it will give those other clubs in the division the desire to get one over the top-of-the-league, now that we're occupying that position.

Wednesday were always going to be a big draw for clubs this season, and when they visit in top spot it will make things that little bit tougher for Alan Irvine and his troops.

Next Sunday's Sky televised game at Brentford is certainly going to be a good indication of how our season is going to pan out, arguably more so than this weekend's game.

Irvine will have to do his best to curb the Owls' confidence ahead of the trip to London, and Brentford will be as prepared as they can be to face Wednesday in-light of the whopping 5-0 win.

A positive result from Brentford would send arguably a bigger message out to the league, if Wednesday are able to show some consistency and are able to pull off the 'favourites' tag pretty well this season.

Norwich City and Leicester City have managed to do that in recent years, and they're acts that the Owls need to follow if they want to secure promotion this season.

Irvine will face the tough task of keeping his players' feet firmly on the ground in training this week, and it'll be a case of more of the same next Sunday.

Let's hope that we can do just that.

UP THE OWLS!

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