Wednesday Get The Monk On: My Thoughts On The New Manager

So, Sheffield Wednesday have ended speculation over the next manager today by appointing Garry Monk as the latest incumbent of the Owls hot seat. It's fair to say it's split opinion and in fairness I have mixed thoughts on it as well. Here I'll go through my own pros and cons of the decision.

Cons

We'll start with the negatives of it. Firstly I do find it worrying that a man who only took his first job in February 2014 is now onto his 5th club. Swansea, Leeds, Middlesbrough and Birmingham all proceed Wednesday on Monk's managerial CV. Having said that management isn't known for being a long term job these days. It's not Monk's fault either that certain chairmen might have panicked and pushed the button too early (Boro) but it's still something that slightly concerns me. As someone who isn't a big fan of changing managers every few seasons it would be nice to think this one would stick around a while.

A lack of a promotion of his CV again isn't necessarily grounds to not give someone a job. Only three teams can go up from this division in any season, it's not easy to get sides out of this division. As for Monk's record, it shows a manager who can get a team moving. Leeds were a mid table side before he arrived that he took to the brink of the play offs only to fall away at the death. Middlesbrough were moving along at a steady pace but as mentioned before Steve Gibson panicked in the hope Tony Pulis would get them over the line. At Birmingham he dealt with a difficult financial situation and in doing so built a solid side that were knocking on the door of the play offs.

Pros

Monk does arrived with plenty of experience at this level as well as well as some time in the league above. He'll know the players at Hillsborough already having come up against them with Leeds, Boro and Birmingham. He'll not need time to get to know them from that point of view. Of course smaller more intricate stuff will need to be worked on but from a wider point of view he won't need telling who's who.

As mentioned before Monk dealt well with the restrictions at Birmingham. He built a solid team based around the strike partners up top of Che Adams and Lukas Jutkiewicz with a solid core of Championship players. He won't be fazed by not being able to spend millions on players. There's a decent core of players at Hillsborough and I'd expect Monk to be able to build a solid side from them.

Having been a player here, all be it briefly during the disastrous 2002/03 season which resulted in relegation from the 2^nd tier. Monk will know what this club is all about, he won't need telling like other managers of the past might have. He'll understand the kind of fan base we have. Being active on twitter as well suggests he's open to the modern way of social media and he'll no doubt have one eye on it.

Lets just get behind him

While he wasn't my choice personally all we can do is get behind him. People wanted a manager and we've got one, people wanted someone who knew the division, they've got him. People wanted someone who would be his own man and wouldn't pick favourites. I feel Monk is that kind of man. He'll get my full support and I'm looking forward to seeing what team he picks at Huddersfield on the 15^th. Good luck Garry. Welcome to the madhouse that is Sheffield Wednesday.

Thanks for reading

Tom

WAWAW