Hull City-swatting Sheffield Wednesday have got to a place scarcely believable a few weeks ago

There was a feeling walking into things that Wednesday would do well to grab a draw. Perhaps it's the pessimism of midwinter, but the Owls were just a weekend out from a gruelling win at Preston North End and without enough senior figures to fill a minibus. Hull are an expensively-assembled squad of goalscoring threats and bright young Premier League talents and had blown them away at the MKM Stadium a few months earlier. They have their eyes set on a top six qualification some time after the sun reintroduces itself; Wednesday's gaze is a little lower.

Within 10 minutes the Owls had blown that cautious notion away. They were slick and suave, Windass and Bannan exchanging one-touch flicks with the joy of teenagers passing love notes, Gassama bursting into pockets of space only to be cruelly blocked. Michael Ihiekwe rose highest to head just wide, a fizzed free-kick was flicked on from an opposition head but into the direction of Matt Ingram in the Tigers goal. When Di'Shon Bernard belts forward, carrying the ball a good 50 yards before having a poked shot snuffed out, you know there's something happening on the pitch below you.

Either side of that Owls spine, two youngsters boisterous and bustling, playing in front of a packed Hillsborough as if in the park such was their sense of adventure. Anthony Musaba and Djeidi Gassama share more than melodic surnames that fit nicely into songs about tequila; they have a similar profile in that there will be days they shine and days they, well, don't. Such is the journey of a developing livewire. On Monday evening it was Gassama's turn to shine brightest.

Championship football matches are beginning to resemble chess matches; both sides looking to draw opponent pieces into areas of vulnerability before launching their own attacks and plotting, plotting, plotting. A failure to topple the Queen of Humberside meant the first half Owls fell a little way short of Grandmaster status but they were dominant and swaggering, Hull scrambling both in possession and out of it.

When talented Liverpool loanee Tyler Morton careered into Gassama and was shown a red card, Bannan turned all Garry Kasparov, pointing his teammates into squares he wanted them in and controlling the pace and direction of each move. Here end the chess chat.

With the break come and gone and more space to push Hull around with, the Owls burst into the second half with fervour. Ashley Fletcher replaced Bailey Cadamarteri and set about building on an excellent few cameo appearances in recent weeks. He played a part in the opener, a slick soiree through a bewildered Tigers defence through the feet of Windass, Musaba and Fletcher and eventually to Marvin Johnson, who finished with the anger of a man who spent the first months of the season kicking his heels. He has five goal involvements in 12 since his return from the cold and is in the finest form of an excellent Owls career.

When Djeidi Gassama produced a stunning strike to put icing on the cake of his best performance in blue and white a few minutes later, the Owls were elevated to a class apart. As it had for a good portion of the clash, it looked to be them that were on the edge of play-off involvement and Hull second-bottom. How far removed this side is from the one Danny Röhl inherited. With five wins in eight now, the question is perhaps; how far it can go?

With Josh Windass involved, further than not. Making his first start in six, he for so long did the work some don't notice, driving the press, producing touches that set up attacks rather than finish them and creating space for others. Pleasing it was, then, that he finished so confidently to make it three and park himself in the goals column once more on a handsome return.

Such was the confidence and calm Wednesday exuded on the night, a cruelly-awarded penalty given against the excellent Michael Ihiekwe and scored by Scott Twine did little to damage any chance of a Wednesday win. It was otherwise the perfect evening; when no injuries were picked up, when Momo Diaby was able to make his return to football, when Mallik Wilks and Michael Smith did the same.

Wednesday's shortfall on the safety spots was not long ago 12 points. That's been cut to three. They were bottom, now they're 22nd. The fan base is chest-out and belligerent, roaring every press and passage of play with belief that was scarcely believable just a few weeks ago. Not much of this was believable just a few weeks ago.

It was a happy new year at S6.