Well another month has past and once again it's been an eventful one. Sheffield Wednesday have in the past month had a 2nd caretaker and appointed a permanent manager. Never dull eh?
Steve Bruce
I'll start with arguably the most important moment of the month, Steve Bruce's appointment. Bruce, a four time promotion winner from this division has the CV, the experience and the desire to do the job here at Sheffield Wednesday. I mentioned in a previous blog that there was no perfect person for the job and I believe that. Steve Bruce does however tick a lot of the boxes people were demanding following the departure of Jos Luhukay. British, proven track record, knew the division, could handle full control of the transfers. He's got all that, he's been a manager for 21 years and I genuinely don't think you stay in the game that long if you don't have a lot about you. At Villa the perception is he had a load of money and failed. I'll hold my hands up that I was one naive enough to believe that without looking into it and in truth he didn't spend as much as people make out, he also didn't really fail, did he? OK they didn't go up but as with Wednesday in 2016, you need your players to turn up on the day and Villa despite the Snodgrass' and Terry's didn't. Enough of that, Wednesday took a lot of flack for Bruce' delayed start and my opinion in it is this, as long as Steve Bruce and Dejphon Chansiri were happy with that then nothing else matters. For me Wednesday allowing Bruce that time to honor his word to his family shows a rare value in football. We bang on about being a family and use the phrase WAWAW a lot, isn't that a good example of that? I wish Steve all the best in the job and I genuinely thing that given the right tools he can achieve the long term goal of promotion. It might not be next season, it might not be the year after that but we stand a much better chance with him in charge.
The Matches
Birmingham City
After all that we actually have some football to talk about. Birmingham City were the first opponents of the New Year and was to be Lee Bullen's final game in charge. It was widely reported Steve Bruce would be announced after the game. It was a decent performance, we took the lead through a decent finish from Steven Fletcher who seems to have made a habit of scoring goals from difficult positions. Wednesday created an awful lot and the experienced Lee Camp made two contenders for save of the season. and bar the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half were dominant. That 10 minutes however allowed ex blade Che Adams to nip in and equalise for the Blues. It wasn't the worst point in the world. Birmingham are having a decent season and have found some stability after a couple of very odd years. Garry Monk has done the best with what he's got, fair play to them. For Wednesday's caretaker Bullen it was two wins and two draws from his four games in charge. Something I'd have taken before hand.
Luton Town
Following the New Year football was the return of the greatest cup competition in the world. I know some people have lost their love of cup football but I still enjoy the FA Cup. It gives you a chance to dream and although in my lifetime it hasn't been very kind to Wednesday when you start out in it you never know. Wednesday were tasked with facing inform Luton from League One. First of all a comment on the atmosphere, I put at tweet out after the game praising the Luton fans as for start it's not exactly local and to bring over 4000 fans for a 12:30 Kick off that let's be honest didn't exactly catch everyone's imagination on both sides that is some effort. Add to that they did make some decent noise I'd say that deserves some recognition. As for our own atmosphere it doesn't help when one stand is closed, it was a big contrast to the Birmingham game where the atmosphere was very good. Of course the game didn't help, it was a tough watch. A 0-0 that could and should have been won in the first few minutes from a header by Steven Fletcher. An easier chance than the one he scored a few days before. Credit to Luton who defended very well against a strong Wednesday team and it was probably a fair result. It was the first chance for Steve Agnew and Stephen Clemence who had arrived in preparation for Steve Bruce to see the players in action under their instruction and while it was a dull game you could see little things that were different.
Hull City
After the Cup it was back to the Championship and a trip to the form team in the country in Hull City. The Tigers had been a terrific run of 9 unbeaten in League and Cup and going from the bottom three to the top half. While Wednesday were on a decent run it was always going to be a hard ask. That isn't to excuse the performance, we were 2nd best in every department and Hull City strolled to a 3-0. They, like Birmingham are an example though that time and patience are needed to get success in this division. Both like Wednesday have issues off the field to deal with but those two sides have found consistency in results. As for the game, while not being their myself and listening to it on the radio it sounded very reminiscent of some of the performances of the previous ear and the highlights showed just that. Going back to a point I made in the previous blog, it isn't just the manager and coaches, players have to take responsibility for themselves as well. This group needs freshening up in the summer and days like this show that.
Luton Town
So the replay against Luton Town, this time we knew what was on the line. A trip to face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. It was also a big chance to bounce back from the defeat at Hull with a moral boosting win. Again Wednesday went strong looking to make sure the tie was settled. It was won with a 2nd half goal from Atdhe Nuhiu and although it wasn't the prettiest goal he'll ever score it was one that earned Wednesday a very good tie in round four. I don't want to get to into the Nuhiu debate but some of the criticism on twitter after the game was ridiculous, he scores a goal that gives six thousand Wednesday fans one the best away days of the last few years and gets slagged off? Doesn't sit right with me that. Luton had their chances but Wednesday defended well, Nuhiu heading one off the line and a good save from Cameron Dawson. Wednesday almost had a slot on the next Rory McGrath DVD (is that still a thing?) when Tom Lees' back pass nearly trickled into his own net. Thankfully it didn't. Overall considering Luton were unbeaten at home for 13 months a good night's work.
Wigan Athletic
After the cup win it was back to Hillsborough for a league game against Paul Cook's Wigan. It was a game where I think most Wednesday fans were expecting to win. I thought for a mid/lower half table we were excellent. Dominated the game for the most part and bar one decent chance for Wigan they never really troubled the Wednesday goal. Their keeper pulled off a couple of decent saves but Steven Fletcher again decided to smash in a goal from an unrealistic position. After some lovely interplay from Barry Bannan and Adam Reach, Fletcher picked the ball up and ran with it, positioned himself and struck it beautifully into the back of the net. I must confess that a bloke behind me said shoot and I said "Oh no, don't shoot from there" I blame the angle personally. After that Wednesday could have added to it, probably the only criticism of the game was the fact we didn't kill it off but that comes with confidence. Overall a positive day at Hillsborough.
Chelsea
So then we went on for a little adventure in the Cup. Chelsea and Wednesday have history when it comes to cup football. This however his a very different Chelsea to the one we last player in the 1999/00 Season. Since then Wednesday have been in League One twice and face oblivion off the field, Chelsea have won 5 Premier League titles, 6 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, 3 Community Shields, A Europa League and in 2012 the Champions League. It's fair to say the two clubs have had different paths over the last 19 years. It was always going to be a tough ask, Wednesday went their with a game plan and for 20 minutes or so it was working. We thought we had a penalty after Andre Marriner gave us one only for VAR (which I am an advocate of) proved it to be the wrong decision. For me that knocked us off balance and Chelsea themselves were given a penalty a few moments later. After that it was an uphill struggle. 3-0 was probably fair but I felt for some of the players. They all but in 100%, the fans were excellent and made themselves heard. It was nice that although the result wasn't the right one but fans made an impact on the national media. Some of the criticism of the tactics used by Steve Agnew in his final game before handing over to Steve Bruce was unjust in my opinion. This idea of 'going for it', well for a start it actually isn't as easy to just go for it. You can plan to attack all you want but a quality team like Chelsea can stop you before you start. Look at someone like Rüdiger at the back for Chelsea, see how good he is on the ball as a centre back. It's not as easy to say "Go and attack them" this is FIFA or Football Manager, it's not like you can just press a button and you're more attacking. Maybe we could have made the substitutions earlier but ultimately that comes down to how fit certain players were and how realistic it was that we were going to get anything from the game anyway. I think if you were expecting a more attacking display from Wednesday then you haven't watched us a lot over the last 18 months. We're an average Championship team and Chelsea are a top 6 side in best league in the world.
Deadline Day
I can't say I'm a massive fan of deadline day, it can occasionally be exciting but often it's Sky basically glorifying bigger clubs holding smaller ones to ransom. Trying to build up excitement of a player going somewhere on loan or a deal falling through. Just feels a bit wrong to me. This year however Wednesday made moves to add three to the squad. Dominic Iorfa from Wolves on a permanent deal and Rolando Aarons and Achraf Lazaar both from Newcastle on loan. All three make sense from a positional point of view. Iorfa comes in to challenge Palmer and Baker you would imagine while with Matt Penney being out until April Lazaar comes in to offer competition for the rejuvenated Morgan Fox. Aarons offers pace out wide and as a winger gives us something we don't have enough of. It was surprising to see the deals done given the current FFP/P&S restrictions but we have to trust in the club and hopefully all three players come in and do well. Welcome aboard lads. As for outgoings, nobody left Hillsborough despite strong rumours of Sam Winnall departing. For one reason or another that didn't happen and now it's up to Winnall to earn a first team shirt. Work hard, take your chances. That's what you'd hope so.
Thanks for reading
Tom
WAWAW
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