Darren Moore full of praise for Sheffield Wednesday after crushing Cambridge

Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore hailed a “wonderful day” after their 5-0 victory over Cambridge saw them move up to second in the table.

Josh Windass scored a hat-trick with Michael Smith (penalty) and Liam Palmer also on target.

Moore said: “It’s always nice to go up another place with a convincing win. We finished 2022 strong and I wanted us to make a strong start to 2023.

“I thought they were into a low block and to get the early goal sort of disrupts their plans and gives us momentum.

“From then we managed to get hold of the game, went two-nil up and had a little reminder just before half-time when they hit the bar.

“My message to them at half-time was that at two-nil it’s a dangerous scoreline.

“We came out in the second half on the front foot and once we got the third goal, I thought the game went away from them.

“It was about us keeping our concentration and we added another couple of goals.

“It’s been a wonderful day for us and we just keep our focus on ourselves. Even though it’s nice that we’re in second position, we’ve just got to keep our momentum and focus on the next game.”

Commenting on hat-trick hero Windass, Moore added: “For any player to get a hat-trick is a special moment and it’ll have given him the world of confidence.

“He’s come back and showed the class talent he is. I thought he took his chances really, really well.”

Cambridge head coach Mark Bonner refused to criticise his under-strength team.

He said: “It’s horrible for everybody to play, watch and be part of because you just know that it was a mis-match really.

“When the first goal comes as early as it does, it becomes a really difficult afternoon. We had a few moments but we didn’t have enough to cope with them.

“They’re incredibly strong, physically very dominant and athletic, similar traits to the Rotherham team that got promoted. It’ll take a good team to finish above them at the end of the season.

“We hope they do get promoted because we don’t fancy coming back here! It’s been really, really tough for us in the last two visits.

“In the end, we can analyse that game to death if we want but there are a lot of players not available to us that would start, it’s as simple as that.

“It was probably everything we feared it could be and hoped it wouldn’t be and we didn’t have enough to match them.

“Let’s be honest – the back four is not the most physically dominant to deal with a team that play like that.”