“Not the best dance” but Xisco points to Sheffield Wednesday improvements after Southampton defeat

The Owls set up in a rigid formation in the first half and looked to frustrate the travelling Saints, who were given the lion share of the ball, particularly in the first half.

An early flurry of chances for the home side saw them come close and raised the atmosphere at S6, so much so that when Nathan Tella’s distant shot took a deflection off Adam Armstrong and settled in Cameron Dawson’s net, it felt a little against the run of play.

Lee Gregory levelled things up for the Owls 10 minutes into the second half and as time grew on Wednesday began to land a few punches on the largely dominant Saints.

But the pressure proved too much in the end when former Sheffield United man Che Adams finished off an incisive move to give Southampton the win in the 87th minute.

Xisco - who along with his players has asked for patience while they attempt to instill a highly technical style of play - was largely philosophical about the display, but admitted that given the high-profile nature of the Sky Sports-broadcast clash, he would have liked to have seen a little more.

“It’s not the best dance for the first game,” said the Spaniard. “It’s like this, we understand the performance, we understand at the point where we are.

“Now I know where we are with the low block. We tried every day to improve, we try because it is important, our high press is important, we have to try to play more forward, it’s important.

“But also we know which opponents we had, I know the style the had and I know the players that they had and in short it is very difficult to take the ball to them.

“What we will try to do more is to give more with consistency and I think the team does understand what we want. We were very close [to winning a point].”

The match was preceded by a minute’s applause for the sadly departed former Owls pair of Trevor Francis and Chris Bart-Williams, who both died on July 24.

Wednesday will look to claim their first league point of the season at Hull City next weekend.