Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 Bristol City: Lees, McGugan inspire Owls

Sheffield Wednesday started the season with a comfortable 2-0 win over newly promoted Bristol City courtesy of goals from Tom Lees and Lewis McGugan.

Lees headed in Alex Lopez's corner on the hour and McGugan's close-range finish secured a deserved win for Wednesday and their new coach Carlos Carvalhal.

Both sides mounted dangerous attacks in the opening 10 minutes in an effort to make the best possible start to the new campaign.

The first real chance fell to the visitors as Luke Freeman picked up the ball just outside the box, cut inside on his right foot and unleashed a shot on goal, but the effort lacked power and Keiren Westwood was able to deal with it easily.

With the half-hour mark approaching, the Owls piled on the pressure. New signing Ross Wallace cut inside and had an effort at goal but neither he nor McGugan on the rebound could put it away.

The best chance of the half came just a few minutes later. Marcho Matias, recently arrived from Nacional, fired in from a tight angle but missed the bottom corner by inches.

Wednesday continued to assert their dominance with Wallace marauding down the wing and whipping the ball in, but Lopez couldn't keep his shot down and blasted over from the edge of the box.

After the break Wednesday picked up where they left off in the first half. A sustained period of dominance saw them go close through Hunt and Atdhe Nuhiu but it looked as though their finishing would let them down.

However, on the stroke of the hour mark the Owls made their pressure pay. Lopez's floated corner found the head of Lees and the big defender nodded the ball past keeper Frank Fielding, who could only get his fingertips to it.

The Robins attempted to come back and nick a goal of their own but with 70 minutes gone a whipped ball into the box cleared the entire Bristol defence and the goalkeeper, finding an expectant McGugan who had the easy job of tapping into an empty net to double his side's lead.

The visitors almost got a consolation goal when a flurry in the box ended with a shot on target from within the crowd but McGugan was there to clear the ball off the line.

The last bit of action came in the dying minutes of added time. A brilliant run from Liam Palmer ended with a pass to Kieran Lee who squared it to Matias, but his shot at the open goal was sliced wide.

Sheffield Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal:
"I am happy because people around me are happy. We had a very good and professional exhibition today. Bristol is a good team. They will be very good during the season, they play good football. We analysed them. Football is a clever game and if you understand what you have to do, it helps, and we did that today.

Bristol City manager Steve Cotterill:
 "They played counter-attacking football at home. That's what I felt happened today. The goal from the corner was our fault because if you don't get touch-tight and you don't get the first contact in the box then you're living on a knife-edge."