Nearly a decade has passed since one of the more iconic evenings of Sheffield Wednesday modern history - and it’s an evening that one Premier League star won’t forget in a hurry.
October 2015 saw top tier title hopefuls Arsenal rock up to Hillsborough in a Carabao Cup Round of 16 clash broadcast in front of the Sky television cameras. While few expected a Wednesday win that night, there was something in the air; the Owls were unbeaten in six weeks and were sat on the edge of the Championship play-off places at the outset of the Dejphon Chansiri and Carlos Carvalhal partnership.
Remarkably, goals from Ross Wallace, Lucas Joao and Sam Hutchinson put Wednesday 3-0 up within the hour as they cruised to a victory that snowballed their momentum in front of over 35,000 supporters. They’d finish sixth and were only narrowly squeezed out of the play-off final at Wembley by Hull City.
One Arsenal figure that day who certainly won’t forget the game in a hurry is Alex Iwobi. Now with high-flying Fulham, the 85-cap Nigeria international is closing in on the tally of 300 Premier League appearances via outings in the Champions League the African Cup of Nations and three appearances in the World Cup. But it all started at S6.
Iwobi started on the left of a front four alongside the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Olivier Giroud, Per Mertesecker and Petr Cech but saw his side blown away in a raucous atmosphere. Wednesday were squeezed out by Stoke City in the next round.
“There was like five youngsters playing and he told us we’d proven ourselves in training and we were going to be given a chance, Iwobi told The Inside Scoop podcast. “He told us that what we did in training, he wanted us to go out and and, to express ourselves. There were also like five first team regular players and they were going to help us.
“We got smoked 3-0. But it was unlucky. The first 10 minutes (Alex Oxlade) Chamberlain came off injured, (Theo) Walcott came of injured. We were all discombobulated right now! The OGs are dropping. We had to rely on the youngsters and I had a decent game, Wenger said I was one of the standout players, so I took that as a positive. I was green and selfish, but we lost 3-0.”
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