0 - 4 
Wednesday West Brom
I woke up on Saturday lunchtime in a buoyant mood, after five long weeks this was the day, the day I finally got to see Wednesday again, I’d waited so long for this one. Saturday afternoon, going to Hillsborough, nothing better in my eyes - I love it; I love the buzz of waking up on a Saturday, having that pre-match meal. Picking the shirt, getting the scarf out, the drive from Skellow to S6, I love every minute of it and after 5 long weeks, I was pumped up for this. Cold weather, raining? Proper footy weather if you ask me.
I have no idea why but I was confident about this one, I thought we could do this, we could send a message to the rest of the division by beating Albion. This is the league where anyone can beat anyone else on any given day, if Scunny can beat Newcastle, why couldn’t we beat West Brom?
I was in my seat at about 2.15, for some reason I always end up at the ground early, probably because I can’t have a pint before kickoff and some weird fear that I’ll get caught up in pre-match traffic on the A61, anyway I was disappointed with the Albion following, to say they’re promotion contenders and this was a Saturday afternoon, I’d have expected them to fill the Leppings Lane Upper, they didn’t even do that.
THE MATCH
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Just seconds into the game, we had the first shot when the ball made its way to Tudders but he didn’t really test ex-Owl Scott Carson in goal. Positive start and I was thinking “get one early and put Albion on the ropes, we might surprise a few people here”. Potter had a long range blast that was high, wide and not so handsome and that first five minutes was about as good as it got...
 | The warning signs were already there before WBA scored. Luke Moore had a snapshot that Grant tipped over and Chris Brunt had an effort smothered by Grant but Wednesday weathered that storm and at 0-0 looked like we had a fighting chance, that was until Dorrans floated a corner in and Simon Cox came in unmarked to volley home from about 4 yards out. I heard some people blame Granty, others blamed Clarke but as a team and as a defensive unit to let anyone walk in to the 6 yard box unmarked and unchallenged is nothing short of criminal. The thing is that wasn’t the worst thing in the game, it was far from it. |
One thing I’ve never gotten about WBA is the boing-boing phenomenon, what is it about? Is it their equivalent of “If you don’t fooking bounce” or is it one of those quirky things that one set of fans and one set of fans only do like Stoke and Delilah?
Jerome Thomas had gotten some stick (deservedly so) for a dive that would have got a 9.9 in the Olympic games but him and Chris Brunt were splitting us open at will. When Brunt was here at S6 and at his best he made things look effortless and he didn’t even break a sweat in creating the second, the pass from Thomas bypassed Gray and Simek and went straight to Brunt who had all the time in the world to pick out one of his team mates, in the end his final ball took a generous deflection off Buxton into the path of Cox who didn’t need any prompting to slot in his and WBA’s second.
| At 2-0 down my mood had gone from being really up for it, to genuine fears of a massacre. The defence was all over the place. Potter and O’Connor were non-existent in the centre of the park. Johnson had done absolutely nothing and Gray was doing his best impression of a headless chicken, even the simplest short passes were going straight to a red shirt. Grant had made a fantastic save from Thomas to prevent a third but that inevitable third came when neat interplay between Thomas and Cox led to Thomas slotting past Grant with the Wednesday defence once again seemingly anywhere but on the Hillsborough pitch and it was no surprise to see Tommy Spurr replaced by Mark Beevers. |  |
This was Brian Laws throwing the towel in and going for damage limitation even if to me it looked like the players had thrown the towel in as soon as Cox had put Albion ahead with the opener.
I don’t usually get into the habit of booing the players off the pitch but I felt I had no option to after the shambolic first-half display. Games are meant to last for 90 minutes but this one seemed like it was over after 45, I saw people leaving and who the hell could blame them - £20+ on a freezing cold November afternoon to see that? I love to see battle, grit, spirit and determination, what I saw in the first half was a Wednesday side that looked like they’d rather be anywhere than on the field.
 | The optimist in me saw a Lazarus-style comeback and told me we
COULD do this, but the pessimist in me saw a Belgrano-style come back
and said there’s no way back, this is a thrashing waiting to happen. I could easily have joined those who left but I didn’t. |  |
It wasn’t because
I was convinced we’d come back, I didn’t even think we’d salvage some
pride with a consolation goal. It was blind faith and deep-rooted
support for the team; it’s what I turn to when I can’t see anything
positive out there, that belief deep inside of me that somehow, someway
Wednesday could turn it round.
That wasn’t the case and truth be told the second half was a case of WBA taking their foot off the pedal and inviting us to break them down. Even at 3-0 up I saw WBA had something that Wednesday were lacking today, commitment to the cause – proven by Dorrans putting his body on the line to block debutant Tom Soares’ shot on goal. Laws took his last roll of the dice by taking Tudders off and replacing him with Varney, another bewildering decision, I didn’t agree with the signing of Feeney but why on earth are we paying him wages to sit on the bench when Cardiff can do the same thing? Am I missing something, Is it a master class on how to waste money we haven’t got? Can someone please tell me? If I had more hair I’d be tearing it out in frustration!
The suffering continued when once again Albion split open the Wednesday defence with Kiwi Chris Wood finding Chris Brunt in space and unmarked.
 | He slotted past Grant to put the icing on the cake from an
Albion perspective. Brunt had said pre-match should he score he
wouldn’t celebrate and fair play to the man, he stuck to his word.
Brunt always divided opinion at S6, when he was at his best – he was
sublime for us and the most naturally gifted player to grace
Hillsborough in recent years but pretty often for us he’d mix the
sublime with the sub-par, but I would go to West Bromwich and carry
Brunt all the way to Hillsborough if it meant we could have him back.
One of the few pluses I could take from this game was his and Scott
Carson’s genuine appreciation of the Hillsborough faithful. |
The final whistle mercifully came and for the handful of fans that stayed until the end, the opportunity for spleen to be vented was taken but most of the squad skulked down the tunnel with only Mark Beevers brave enough to face the music. It’s all well and good enjoying the adulation when we win and things are going well but when things aren’t going so well, players could at least applaud the fans and based on that gutless, spineless display it’s the least they should have done.
Today was a dark day. Hours were spent trying to think of a positive, anything I could take out of this and all I could think of is, we probably won’t see a better side at Hillsborough this season than WBA. They cut us open at will, their work ethic was terrific and even when they took their foot off the pedal in the second half, they looked unflustered to the point where Scott Carson’s kit probably didn’t need washing – I can barely remember us threatening in the second half.
They’re the princes of this league and Wednesday are the paupers, at this time we can only dream of having the quality they possess in their side BUT we made it so much easier for them. Our defence was so shaky they registered 11 on the Richter scale, our midfield anonymous and our strikers were shadow chasing.
| I can accept defeat but I can’t accept such a gutless, spineless
display from Wednesday nor should I or any other Owls fans for that
matter have to accept this. I have long been pro-Laws but after
spending most of the evening and morning thinking about it, I think now
is the time for Brian to move on, it may be unpopular in some corners
as BL is a genuinely likable bloke but with the budget being increased
this summer, the signings both loan and permanent have been
questionable at best, awful at worst. Darren Purse has been a massive
letdown, Tommy Miller has had no impact and after a good start Darren
Potter has gone massively off the boil. |  |
People disliked Dave Allen but he had the balls to make unpopular decisions, the decision to sack Paul Sturrock while unpopular was ultimately the right one and Laws is now starting to sound like Sturrock did towards the end of his time at S6, he sounded like a beaten man last night on the radio and I have the feeling that WBA is Laws’ Colchester. The bigger question for me is will Lee Strafford have the cojones to make the unpopular decisions here at S6?
Should we sack Laws, the obvious question is who should replace him and for once at S6 we should take time and care to make sure the man we appoint is the right man to lead us forward. Too many times in the past we’ve taken the cheap option or the wrong option and its cost us badly. Danny Wilson and Chris Turner were appointed on sentiment and sentiment has no place in a results business. Terry Yorath was appointed because he was a cheap option and just happened to be in the right place at the right time, these appointments set us back years.
LS and Nick Parker are quite rightly waiting for the right investment to take us forward and if they should look for the right man to take us forward, while they are searching for that guy they could do worse than give the reigns to Sean McAuley for the short term.
This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. I love Sheffield Wednesday and I hate being negative about the club, I would have loved for my rambling debut to be under happier circumstances than the most painful performance seen at Hillsborough for a long time but it was not to be, I’m despondent at the moment but I can guarantee the depression will wash over and I’ll be more than up for another dosage of football next Saturday against Reading
We’re all Wednesday aren’t we?
Cheers
Danny (D-Good83)
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