Dino Maamria hails ‘a brilliant day’ for Burton after Sheffield Wednesday win

Dino Maamria praised an “outstanding performance” from his Burton side as they toppled League One automatic-promotion hopefuls Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 in a thriller at the Pirelli Stadium.

Callum Paterson cancelled out John Brayford’s opener for the Brewers before January signing Mark Helm took a starring role with a brace, his first professional goals.

The win moved Albion eight points clear of the relegation zone.

“It was an outstanding performance” Maamria beamed.

“A brilliant day for the football club. As a performance it was up with the best I have seen here at the Pirelli Stadium.

“To win that game in the way that we won it, convincingly, with three brilliant goals, although we conceded two sloppy goals, despite that I was never in doubt that we were going to win that game.”

The Pirelli Stadium has been good for Albion with successive wins over Barnsley and Wednesday driving them up the table.

“We can beat anyone here,” said a confident Maamria.

“The biggest thing when you are playing a side like Sheffield Wednesday here is that you have to go out on the pitch with the belief and the intention that you are going to win.

“If you don’t win the game in your head, there is no way that you are going to win it on the pitch. We showed our intent from the first whistle.”

Maamria singled out his first January signing for praise after his first senior goals.

He added: “I am hoping that Mark is going to be one of my best signings for this club. He is a real asset. He has huge potential, and he has real quality with the ball. He is a complete midfielder for me.”

Owls boss Darren Moore was left with more questions than answers after defeat saw his side slip out of the top two.

He said: “When I look back it is two first time contact goals. Was it a lapse of concentration or misjudgment of the ball? To concede from a corner and a set-piece like that just wasn’t us.”

Substitute Michael Smith netted a late penalty to give Wednesday hope, but Moore felt it came too late.

“We got a couple of goals down and then got back in the game,” Moore added.

“We tried to get back in the game but the penalty came a little too late for us to get any sustained momentum.

“I said to the players that if you don’t perform, you can’t expect to win. We didn’t perform so how can we expect to win? I don’t care what the stats say we didn’t do our work clean enough today.

“We knew Burton would try and make it into a frenzied game but we didn’t deal with it well enough.”