Alan Irvine was smiling after a fifth win from seven games as the Owls triumphed 2-0 against Blackpool.

Goals from James O'Connor and Darren Potter either side of half time were enough to secure another three points for Wednesday and Irvine was delighted with the way his side went about their duties.

Irvine said: "It's absolutely terrific. Five wins out of seven is magnificent in any division and probably even more so in the Championship. The lads deserve enormous credit for what they've done.

"The first thing I said to Lee (Grant) was 'there you go, there's your clean sheet.' We've come close, we've conceded as couple of late goals, and he's been very disappointed after the games so it was nice for him."

It was the first clean sheet in 14 games for Wednesday but Irvine was keen to stress that his side still have a lot of points to scrap for between now and the end of the season as the relegation battle continues.

"We are still very much in it," he said. "A couple of bad results and other teams are catching up on you. Reading have scored late on tonight to win the game and I think this contest is going to go a long, long way. We still need six wins but it sounds a lot better now; six wins out of 16 rather than 11 wins out of 23.

"In the time that we've been here the lads have worked really, really hard. The emphasis has been on our shape and our organisation and that being the platform on which we can play. They have worked very, very hard in the games and in the training sessions and I think everyone is aware of what their job is within the team and they are all trying really hard to do their job.

"The pleasing thing is that they also realise that they may have to fill in for somebody else and do their job. At times we had Micky Gray at centre forward and Marcus Tudgay filled in wide on the right so the lads deserve enormous credit."

"I know a number of the lads have come out and said that their confidence has come back but they should be more confident because of the way the results have gone. The wins are the key thing. I don't think they would be feeling confident if they had lost five out of seven games and they deserve the credit for the way they have performed."