Sheffield Wednesday’s Josh Windass talks personal milestones, that red card and the ‘sound’ Portsmouth referee

The 29-year-old has been a key component in the Owls’ charge to the top of the League One table, but he’s also scored in every competition that he’s featured in in Wednesday colours in 2022/23.

His winner against Portsmouth made it 15 goals in all competitions for the club, just three short of his tally in 2017/18 whilst at Rangers – his best to date.

The forward will be aiming for more, though, as Wednesday seek promotion back into League One, and while it would be nice to hit 20 goals this season he admits that the team comes first.

“I should’ve had one more with my header at the end,” Windass told the media after his winner at Fratton Park. “It was a bit of a sitter, but I don’t really care... I’ve got close before, but never managed to 20-mark - that’s what happens when you sometimes get put in midfield, sometimes up front, and you don’t know where you’re playing week-to-week. It’s always nice to score, but it’s not my main aim.”

It was his sixth winner of the campaign – no player has scored more.

Wednesday’s Pompey win had plenty of subplots, including ‘Towelgate’ shortly before his goal, a sending off for Dominic Iorfa and plenty of noise from the crowd – Windass thinks, meanwhile, that the hosts should’ve been down to 10 men in the first half and gave his opinion on ref, Ben Toner.

He told The Star, “The ref kept saying to me, ‘If you keep losing your head then I’m going to send you off’, but I said like, “Literally I’m so chilled out, I’m not even bothered’… I got the ball thrown in my face in the first half, so that’s a red card in my opinion if you raise your hands to an opponent - but it is what it is.

“The ref was sound, he was alright on the pitch. Some of them are arrogant and stuff like that, but he was sound. I just think the crowd was getting on top of him a bit in the second half and with Dom’s (sending off) it was just a tangle of feet, I don’t even think it was a foul never mind a second yellow.”

With 22 goals and assists this season, no player at the club has directly contributed to Wednesday finding the back of the net more often than the former Accrington Stanley attacker – and he’ll be aiming to add to that tally once more on Friday evening when Bolton Wanderers come to town in another tough League One encounter.

Windass has passed the 20 league G/A point twice in his career before, once with Accrington in 2015/16 and again with Rangers in the aforementioned 2017/18 season, but he’s just two assists away from having his best season as a creator on top of his goals – and in his current form there's nothing to say he won’t set a few personal bests come the final day at home to Derby County.

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