This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Sheffield Wednesday sank to a fourth straight game without victory, but it was always going to be a hard task to follow up recent developments off the field.
Even more so when coming up against the league leaders, West Bromwich Albion.
The Owls succumbed to a 2-1 defeat at the Hawthorns on Saturday afternoon and, once again, were left rueing a late goal against them as they looked sure to be returning to south Yorkshire with at least a point.
It comes just days after the club were charged by the EFL for financial misconduct with them staring down the barrel of a hefty points deduction at the very least.
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In three straight matches now, Wednesday have seen results slip from their grasp, starting with Blackburn Rovers’ come-from-behind victory before Swansea City snagged a point at the death before the international break.
Time and time again, it appears that it is down to individual mistakes. After the game, manager Garry Monk said: “We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing and cut out silly mistakes. It’s nothing to do with tactics or anything like that. But, unfortunately, we’re human beings, sometimes we make mistakes.”
But this problem continues to arise as those who make such errors are given the very platform to do it again, and again, and… again.
This is epitomised by goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, whose rush of blood to the head led to him scything down Matheus Pereira inside the penalty area, just weeks after his awful clanger against the Swans.
Liam Palmer also saw red for a reckless yet needless challenge soon after to halt any chance of salvaging a point back in their favour.
The 40-year-old has also added: “We’ve talked about it, we’ve discussed it, we’ve trained it, we’ve shown it, that’s all you can do.”
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However, this is where he is wrong. Monk needs to be gutsy and show some mettle to drop those that have consistently let him down in recent weeks.
Then they will truly know that their place is up for grabs, and they’ll hopefully learn from it, rather than sitting back with the safety net of knowing they’ll be starting the next game regardless of whether they hoof the ball into their own net or not.
Time to be bold, Garry.
In other news… one Wednesday regular shouldn’t face the axe after he ran the show against the league leaders.
