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Alan Irvine has been in the Hillsborough hot seat for 3 weeks and in a hectic two-week period has claimed 9 of a possible 12 points. Terrific away days at both Barnsley and Blackpool and a battling home win against Peterborough were followed by a disappointing defeat at Scunthorpe.

So it was a bit of a mixed feeling when I woke up on Saturday thinking about the match. The new regime had already wiped out my 5 year away day hoodoo at Bloomfield Road, today was a bit of a bigger test, could the Owls do something I’d never seen them do in person and beat Plymouth Argyle? The heart said yes but the head had lingering doubts.

Doing my usual knack of arriving at the ground early and not having eaten since the previous evening, I decided to partake in the club’s catering and try a meat and potato pie. The football pie for me has 3 simple rules.

•  It shall not fall apart when you try to bite into it
•  It should have proper meat in it, not some sort of mush that claims to be meat.
•  It should taste good.
  

It passed on 2 of the 3 criteria, it did fall apart meaning I had to do a bit of a Blade in a trough impression to actually eat it, which TBH, is one of my better impressions. (Though you should see my Simon Cowell sometime)
Thankfully no one was around to see the mess I was making and the state of my pie splattered face

THE MATCH

Considering this was a key relegation battle, there was a distinct lack of atmosphere and from my point of view in the middle of the Kop, an atmosphere that seemed to be a fine line between gallows humour and flat-out pessimism.

If there’s one thing that really grinds my gears as a football fan, its people who go to do nothing but complain, what pleasure do they get out of coming to Hillsborough?

One change was made from the midweek defeat at Scunthorpe with Luke Varney coming in for Leon Clarke who had apparently picked up a knock at Glanford Park. Varney’s berth on the bench was filled by Francis Jeffers.

The early play belonged to Plymouth who had a lot of possession but didn’t really do anything with it; their only shots at goal were from long range and never really looked like testing Lee Grant.

Wednesday had started slowly and were just getting into their stride when a good passage of play from Argyle saw their chief architect Jamie Mackie passing Darren Purse with ease, meaning James O’Connor had to help out and knock the ball out for a corner. From that corner Judge swung it in and Rory Fallon beat his man, stooped and nodded it downwards and into the net.

“Typical Wednesday!” were the cries I heard from some of the fans and that was one of the more complimentary things. When we go behind our fans don’t seem to rally behind the lads like they should but they were lifted mere seconds later…

Straight from the restart a quick Tommy Spurr throw-in was flicked on by Marcus Tudgay and found its way to Luke Varney who stabbed it through the keeper’s legs to hit back immediately. We were back on a level playing field and it was game on!

The Pilgrims were still enjoying plenty of possession and at times the Owls looked nervous with Purse letting their striker in and rollicking Grant for it!

Darren – you may be captain, you may need to tell the others when they’re at fault but man up and take responsibility when you make an error!

A mix-up also occurred between Grant and Lewis Buxton with Buxton probably not hearing Grant’s shout and booting it into the stand.

Now for all the progress Lee Grant has made since that horrific show at Portman Road in August 2007,for all the qualities he possesses, his major flaw is his inability to consistently command his area and it is one thing Alan Irvine and Andy Rhodes need to work on with him. Some of the chances the opposition have are created by defensive confusion due to this weakness.

In the approach to half-time, most of us would have accepted 1-1, the Owls weren’t having it though, a clearance by Tommy Spurr was flicked on by Tudgay into the path of Varney who had no real right to get to the ball but somehow he got there. He did the behemoth Reda Johnson for pace, ran into the penalty area and angled a sweet left-foot drive past Stockdale in the Argyle net. CRACKING FINISH, SUPERB GOAL!

Following the strike there was some sort of noise through the announcement system, I think it was meant to be our goal music, if it was, it was poor, VERY poor.

The goal music debate is one of the most trivial things going but I do think it strange that it was scrapped last season because it “detracted from the match day experience” only to be brought back 12 months later. I’m not a fan of it but I have more important things to be worrying about regarding Wednesday.

The Owls saw out the half, even though Buxton got himself a deserved booking for a bad challenge on Mackie. Hearing some of our “fans” chant ‘OFF, OFF, OFF’ really rubbed me and some of the people sitting around me up the wrong way.

Lewis Buxton may not be a world beater, he may not be Roland Nilsson but hearing our own supporters boo and hound him is not right, he is a Wednesday player and every mistake he makes there are cries of derision from the crowd – why? Is it because the more popular Frankie Simek plays in his position, is it because his erroneous own goal at Bramall Lane turned out to be the winner? Why does the poor kid get this treatment? We should be supporting him, not wanting him to fail – some fans really need their head checking and at times make me ashamed that these people are associated with the club I love.

        
On a lighter note, it really was a pleasure to see Phil King introduced to the crowd at half-time. I liked Phil as a player and seeing him made me hark back to happier times at S6.

        
The second half commenced and the opening forays mirrored that of the first with Argyle enjoying a lot of possession but not doing anything with it and the game was turning into a battle of attrition in the centre of the park.

This was a game begging for someone like Darren Potter to grab it by the scruff of the neck but we were far too clumsy in possession giving the ball away way too often. Even Michael Gray looked below his best.

A word for Tudgay, his aerial ability is so under appreciated here, if he was just a few inches taller allied with that salmon like leap he has, he’d be the ultimate aerial threat. To see him win headers he shouldn’t be winning game after game, week after week goes nearly unnoticed here, it’s a fine string to his bow and yet again he was a key part in our defensive ability to soak up Plymouth’s armoury of set-pieces and long throws.

Lewis Buxton had looked like he was struggling with an injury and it was no real surprise to see him replaced by crowd favourite Frankie Simek.

Modern day warrior Tom Soares followed Buxton a few minutes later to be replaced by Akpo Sodje with Tudgay switching to the right. Tom had an off day although in fairness with the lack of games he’s had in the last two seasons, 5 games in two weeks may have just caught up with him.

The game petered out a bit after that with the Owls defence comfortably soaking up anything Argyle could throw at them. Reda Johnson clattered into Grant after he claimed the ball in the area and was booked for his trouble

For all the pressure the Owls soaked up, we couldn’t do anything with the ball and an Akpo Sodje header that lacked power was the only goal threat we really had in the second half. Sodje did however provide a new dimension with his hold-up play being excellent. At the death, when we needed to give the beleaguered defence some respite, his play in the corners up field was a huge boost.

The final whistle blew and the Plymouth monkey was finally off my back but the game as a spectacle was awful, with both sides offering very little in real attacking threat. It was a scrappy, cagey affair but for two sides supposedly high on confidence with both winning 3 out of their last 4 it was a terrible game.

        
It was a midfield battle for the most part with James O’Connor running himself into the ground for the Wednesday cause winning tackles, keeping the game simple and practically carrying the workload of the midfield on his shoulders with Soares, Gray and Potter all having off days. James O Connor was absolutely fantastic and without a doubt in my mind he has been our player of the season so far.

The big pity for me is Darren Potter’s inability to pull the strings in midfield in key games, when we REALLY need him. For someone of his ability and talent to let games like this pass him by is nothing short of criminal. This game needed a midfield maestro to grab it by the short and curlies. He IS that maestro. O’Connor for all his endeavour and graft can’t do that, Potter can, but to see him fail to do it consistently is a source of great frustration to me.

Varney shone very brightly, even if he could only feed off scraps, his second goal today was a beautiful solo effort and he harassed the Argyle defence to maximum effect when given the opportunity putting his body on the line for the team, shown by taking a close range whack in the face by an Argyle clearance.

The back four despite one or two shaky moments looked reasonably solid, but it must be a disappointment for Hazel that we have failed, yet again, to keep a clean sheet. The improved defensive unit has seen some people praise Darren Purse as the saviour. I’m afraid that IMHO this is nonsense – Purse is not the saviour, Purse is for the most part solid defensively but he always drops one massive clanger a match that often costs us and his distribution is absolutely awful and he has so far failed to do the job Hazel's predecessor Brian Laws brought him in for.

It is pleasing however to see Tommy Spurr and Mark Beevers starting to resemble the duo that were so highly rated a couple of seasons ago. Tommy has a bit of his swagger back now and he made a couple of outstanding blocks and tackles in the game.

Beevers still needs to work on his distribution but his defensive work has got steadily better and if he continues to progress he’ll be by far and away the best centre-back at Sheffield Wednesday.

Frankie’s little cameo was enjoyable but I didn’t see enough to convince me that Buxton’s place is under threat yet.

        
With the positives, there are always negatives though.

Plymouth for all their hard work and endeavour lacked the craft and guile to break us down and I would be very surprised if they were to be in the Championship next season.

The pessimists said a better side would have murdered us given our errors in possession, which is probably true, but you can only beat what is in front of you on the day and we did enough to win. The Pilgrims did nothing to prove they deserved to win this game. It may sound harsh but for all the possession they had, does anyone remember Granty being called into action?

The conclusion of this hectic period has seen us yield 12 points from 15 which all of us would have taken when Alan Irvine was appointed and is nothing short of a miracle if we’re honest with ourselves. We’ve had good, bad and indifferent performances to get those points and it’s not been easy, ANY OF IT! Next month will be no different.

February starts with a tricky trip to Forest but is followed by winnable home games against Blackpool, Doncaster and Ipswich.

For all of Brian Laws’ faults you cannot deny that last season he and the team made Hillsborough a hard place to come. Irvine is 2 for 2 at home and if we are to stay up this season, our home form will be vital. Winning our home games and nicking the odd result on the road will secure Championship football for another season at Hillsborough.

Irvine has made us tough to beat and our shape when we don’t have the ball is good. What he, Rob Kelly and Billy Barr need to work on now is what we do when we do have possession. The errors shown today can’t be repeated on a consistent basis if we are to climb clear of danger but we now look dangerous going forward, even if we did only have three meaningful attacks today, we still scored twice.

From what I’ve seen in the early days of Alan Irvine’s reign, which amazingly is not even a month old, he has impressed me with his comments, he seems smart, articulate and refreshingly cliché free, I’ve also been more than satisfied with how he’s organised our defensive unit, not just the back four but through to the midfield and strikers as well. Some hail him as the saviour and some say his style is anti-football, as ever the truth is probably somewhere in-between.

There will be good days and there will be bad days between now and the end of the season, what we need to do is play our part and back Father Ted, Hazel, Alan whatever you may want to call him and Sheffield Wednesday to the hilt. Let’s make opposition teams intimidated by coming to Hillsborough

Let’s be Blue, White and Proud! Up The Owls!

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