Report and highlights from the Sky Bet League One play-off semi-final first leg between Peterborough and Sheffield Wednesday at the Weston Homes Stadium as the Posh took a controlling grip of the tie.
Thursday 25 May 2023 13:49, UK
Peterborough took a vice-like grip of their League One play-off semi-final as they thrashed Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 in the first leg.
Goals from Jack Taylor and Joe Ward came in the first half at the Weston Homes Stadium, while Kwame Poku and Jonson Clarke-Harris notched after the break to make light of the 19-point gap that separated these two sides in the regular season.
It leaves Wednesday with a mountain to climb in the second leg at Hillsborough on Thursday, to avoid again crashing out at the semi-final stage as they did last year.
And it won't be lost on Darren Moore that it was his side's victory over Derby on the final day of the season that allowed Peterborough to sneak into the play-offs in the first place.
Sheffield Wednesday finished the season on 96 points, more than any other side not to finish in the top two of any league in England in history and the most in the club's 155-year history. But this is the play-offs where anything can happen, and it took just 50 minutes for all that hard work to be decimated.
The opener for the Posh came on 20 minutes as a Taylor strike somehow squirmed in at the near post past Cameron Dawson when he really ought to have done a lot better with it.
The lead was doubled on 36 minutes. This was even crueler for the Owls, as Ward's ambitious strike from 25 yards took a massive deflection off of Marvin Johnson and managed to loop past Dawson and into the net.
Peterborough were in dreamland, and it got better not long after the break as Poku added a third, heading home in yards of space after a teasing cross from Ephron Mason-Clark down the left flank.
Darren Moore made changes as Lee Gregory and Dennis Adeniran were introduced, but it would only get worse for Wednesday, as Clarke-Harris nodded in from close range to make it four in the closing stages.
Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher on Sky Sports Football:
"I didn't see that type of result coming at all. That shows what Peterborough can do to you. If they get that first goal they can blow you away. They were outstanding and fully deserved to win.
"I thought Peterborough would be a bit more conservative after they fell behind, but they went at Peterborough and got hit on the counter."
Jobi McAnuff on Sky Sports Football:
"I was blown away by Peterborough. Their intensity on the break and the pace they countered with.
"Darren Ferguson has to take an awful lot of credit in terms of how he's changed the direction of this club, in terms of getting them into the play-offs.
"He has made them more defensively solid, and given the platform to those attacking players we saw tonight. Sheffield Wednesday could not deal with the pace of their front four."
Don Goodman on Sky Sports Football:
"It wasn't just the goal. His running power from midfield has caused Sheffield Wednesday all kinds of problems. He has been outstanding."
Peterborough's Darren Ferguson:
"The first goal in games like this is always key and I have to say my goalkeeper has made a massive save at 0-0. That could maybe have changed the course of the game. But my players were outstanding. It was a very, very good performance.
"To beat Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 is a fantastic result for us and I'm probably just as pleased about the clean sheet as I am the goals because they make you defend set-pieces. But it's just half-a-game gone, unfortunately. There's no complacency; there can't be. We want to go to Hillsborough and try and win the game. That's how we'll approach it, that's the attitude we've got. I felt that we couldn't go there losing in the tie, but we've won it and we've won it well."
Sheffield Wednesday's Darren Moore:
"It's a sore night for us at the moment and if you were to try and put it into words right now, you probably aren't going to find the right ones. We've got to re-group and get ready for next week.
"Mistakes happen in games and nine times out of 10, Cameron Dawson deals with that situation. On a night like this, sometimes the emotions are a little bit more flared and there's a lapse in concentration and that's the only thing we can think of because it was a routine save. The other one is the deflected shot, so when you go two down, the next goal was always going to be a crucial one. We spoke about that at half-time, it went to them and then the game ran away from us.
"It's a huge task, but all we can do at this moment in time is reflect on the game tonight and just get ready for next week. It is a big uphill task."
The second leg will be played at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough home at 8pm on Thursday May 18, live on Sky Sports Football.
There, the teams will battle it out for a place in the Sky Bet League One play-off final, which will take place at Wembley Stadium at 3pm on Monday May 29.
