Sheffield Wednesday: Personal heartache behind Barry Bannan's goal bid

The Scot had been trying, perhaps more than usual, to find the net against Burton and said that he wanted to score, to pay tribute to a member of his family who passed away at the weekend.

And Bannan is hopeful that a goal will come when he takes on his former club Aston Villa on Saturday.

“I was trying my best as I had a family member that was close to me who passed away on Sunday and we are a bit down at the minute,” said Bannan.

“I was trying my best to get a goal for him and that’s why I had all those shots.

“It has been really tough and I am down here on my own at the minute and all the family, mum and dad have obviously gone back up to Scotland and my sister as well.

“I have been down here on my own and it is hard because there’s no-one around you to speak to.

“Just going out onto the pitch, I tried to put on a performance for him because I know he will have been watching over me.

“I tried my best to score, but hopefully I can on Saturday.”

It was, collectively, a frustrating night for Sheffield Wednesday who were held to a 1-1 draw by relegation-battlers Burton.

However, while Bannan was disappointed that he and his team mates were unable to unlock Nigel Clough’s defence, after Jackson Irvine had cancelled out Ross Wallace’s opener, the 27 year-old praised Burton for fighting hard to keep them out.

“It was disappointing in the end,” he admitted.

“I don’t know if you can say many words; we kept going and going, but just could not get the (second) goal.

“After a good start, we looked to build on it and set the pace, but their’s was a good goal, to be fair.

“It was a goal out of nothing when we were probably on top in the game and it rocks you back a little bit.

“After that, we kept going and going and put in a lot of balls into the box. But to be fair, they played like a team fighting for their lives.

“Especially after Saturday, when we scored a lot of goals, that was the plan (against Burton). But you have to them credit with five at the back and they defended their penalty box very well.

“It was not for the lack of trying and we kept going to the end and kept trying to do the right things.

“With the games like Saturday (against Norwich), they can turn into five or sixes. But here, they kept us to one.”

With Fulham also drawing, at home to Leeds, the Owls’s closest challengers to a top six spot were kept at arms length.

But Bannan says Wednesday are not concerning themselves with what’s behind them.

“It is not so much the chasing pack. We are looking up and trying to catch the teams above us and we are aiming up.”

We have just got to concentrate on ourselves and when you see the other results, it is still pretty positive for us.”