Sheffield Wednesday’s season is already unravelling amid distractions and defeats
If eight words could sum up the mood of a football club, Sheffield Wednesday manager Xisco Munoz picked his perfectly following Saturday’s loss to Ipswich Town.
“I have to say sorry to the fans,” the Spaniard said in the wake of the 1-0 home defeat, the fifth time Wednesday have been beaten in their first six league games this season. They drew the other one.
For Munoz to be fronting up with apologies at this stage, having been in charge for just 10 weeks, reflects how woeful Wednesday’s return to the Championship has been so far following their thrilling promotion in May. But it also reveals the pressure the manager who took Watford up to the Premier League from this division at the end of the 2020-21 season is already under, despite the short and sharp refusal on Saturday to engage with any suggestion that his job could be in peril this soon.
Heading into what is a two-game week at Hillsborough, taking all six points felt important for Wednesday. Earning at least three seemed vital. Anything less did not bear thinking about.
With one of the two matches now lost, the meeting with fellow early-season strugglers Middlesbrough tomorrow (Tuesday) already looks like season-defining.
Improvement will be needed — and fast — for Wednesday to win that one.
They did not manage a single shot on target against Ipswich and lacked the swashbuckling freedom in attack which saw them pull off the most improbable of comebacks on the same pitch four months ago to the day, when they overturned a 4-0 play-off semi-final first-leg deficit against Peterborough United to win on penalties after a 5-5 aggregate draw.
Their lack of identity on the ball was only made more evident in contrast to their opponents, who played out from the back and used midfielder Sam Morsy to build before picking their moment to attack at speed.
Ideas were in short supply for the home side, particularly without injured midfield talisman Barry Bannan. Whereas attacking down the wings and targeting the penalty area with crosses worked so well last season, chances and even a clear attacking style of play have been in short supply in these opening games.
Though Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna was pleased to finally beat Wednesday at his fourth attempt, the gulf in class between the sides shows how quickly they have moved in opposite directions since promotion from League One. With a fifth win from six, Ipswich kept pace with Leicester City and Preston North End inside the top three, while Wednesday have imploded on and off the field.
Last season’s manager Darren Moore’s calming presence is sorely missed and the story of his exit over the summer has hung over the Yorkshire club for far longer than is healthy. The 1,881-word statement Wednesday’s owner Dejphon Chansiri issued last week in response to an interview Moore gave to UK broadcaster Sky Sports about leaving the club was just the latest piece of ‘he-said, she-said’ back and forth between them.
In reality, Moore revealed very little in that Sky interview other than refuting a disagreement over a salary increase was the main reason for his exit, instead pointing to a difference regarding timelines and targets as the cause. Chansiri says otherwise — the short summary of his lengthy statement being that money was at the heart of their decision to mutually part ways in June, three weeks after Moore delivered promotion in dramatic fashion via a Josh Windass goal in the final seconds of extra time against Barnsley in the play-off final.
It is within his means as owner and chairman to use club channels to air his side of events, but the fact the whole affair — including intricate details of finances and decisions over the futures of players — is being exposed in public has sat awkwardly against the backdrop of Wednesday’s current struggles on the pitch.
Had they started well under successor Munoz, it might have faded into the background. But after two seasons of a reduced public presence where the football did the talking, Chansiri’s recent conduct comes on top of concerns over ticket pricing which has led to a new surge of feeling against the Thai businessman within the fanbase.
Before kick-off against Ipswich, a banner bearing the Wednesday owner’s face and name that has occupied a space at the back of the Kop at Hillsborough for several seasons was removed having been graffitied by fans with spray paint.
On the hour mark, two rounds of “Dejphon Chansiri, get out of our club” could be heard from blocks of fans in the North and Kop stands, and boos rang around the ground at full-time despite many having headed for the exits early.
Though Chansiri has long divided opinion, the tide appears to be turning against him and, with results not improving, it threatens to become a swell of hostility.
The tension is clear in the dressing room, too, with Marvin Johnson’s exclusion from the first team another cause of bewilderment in recent weeks.
The 32-year-old was an influential member of Moore’s squad last season and provided three goals and 10 assists from his position at left wing-back, earning a new contract signed in July, after the manager’s departure. Since shortly after Munoz’s arrival four days later, however, he has been sidelined without explanation — at least in public, anyway — although a loan offer from Derby County of League One late in the summer transfer window was also rebuffed.
It leaves Wednesday paying the wages of a player not in the 25-man squad they submitted to the EFL last week, while the Professional Footballers’ Association, the players’ trade union, is said to have been in touch with the club regarding Johnson’s situation.
Every distraction and scandal is another shovel of coal thrown onto the fire speeding up Wednesday’s runaway train of a season.
Apologies from the manager will do little to slow it down.
“In the press conference before (the game), we talked about taking one step forward,” Munoz said afterwards. “Today we took two steps back. It’s important after the first 45 minutes, after half-time, the team had a good reaction. But it was not enough and if you can’t take a step forward with that, then you can’t play in the Championship. We can speak about the positive things in the second half but I don’t like how I feel about the first half because it was a big frustration for us to play at that level.”
He added: “We will think about how we can prepare for the next game, but we need to find the balance with this problem. It’s an important problem (the lack of consistency over 90 minutes) and if we don’t change it, it’s impossible to take the points because the Championship has a high level.
“Today the plan was zero, because we didn’t put two passes (together). How can you evaluate the plan when it wasn’t there?”
