Dave Jones rued what he called a missed opportunity following the Owls’ home defeat to Burnley on New Year’s Day.
Goals from former Wednesday loanee Keith Treacy and Ross Wallace sealed the win for the Clarets, who emerged with a deserved three points from Hillsborough.
But Jones looked back on a low-key affair with regret having seen other sides in close proximity with Wednesday drop points.
He said: “I see this is a missed opportunity. The frustrating thing is that results elsewhere fell for us and a win today would have seen us right in the pack.
“But we just didn’t get going today. It was a slow game from the beginning.
We were flat, we were missing a spark and maybe it was one game too many over a short period of time.
“The players have worked so hard to get into a position to make that happen, so it’s doubly disappointing.
“We now have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and move on.
“We will go through it, we will talk about it and analyse where we went wrong.
“It’s good maybe that the next game is in the FA Cup because it might give us the chance to give one or two a rest because the games have been coming so thick and fast.”