So proud
Such mixed feelings today, knowing we probably should have won. However, I love the courageous approach we took to the match (partially by necessity), and after all the talk of not being able to create, we had arguably our most creative game!
Taking a step back overall, I am just so proud of this team and this club. Despite knowing this was set to be a relegation battle from the off and setting our expectation levels accordingly, this season has still been unusually frustrating, from bad refereeing decisions, to single moments in games that have changed draws into defeats, and wins into draws. The lack of goals has also meant that moments of catharsis are few and far between. That all being said, many of us had already made peace with there being a few 6-0s and 7-0s over the course of the season. Instead, we have only been thrashed once, and every other team has had to fight tooth and nail to get anything from us. It's been a grind, but a valiant, valiant grind.
Moral victories aside, I still feel full of hope we are going to manage to stay up. Back at the start of the 2018-19 we were struggling to acclimatize to L1 a little, and had not won before we played Plymouth away, going 1-0 down there too. At some point in that game something clicked, and though we did not win (1-1 with a Bloomers equalizer if I remember rightly) there was a feeling that we had finally figured something out. We won our next game (Bradford) and went on a brilliant run shortly afterwards.
I am not saying today was our 'Plymouth', but I have a lot of hope that we at least learned another significant lesson, especially going forward, which can reverse the trend, and turn some losses into draws and draws into wins.
If any club can figure out how to stay in the second tier with a fraction of the resources of the competition, it is this club, this team, this manager.
Comments
Pretty much all I ask from this season is that we give it everything we’ve got based on the resources we have available.
I’ve probably seen about 3/4 of our games so far, and I certainly haven’t felt let down in any of the games - I saw the Blackburn gubbing, but big defeats happen and we’re up against a higher quality of player who will punish mistakes that you’d get away with in a lower division.
As is completely obvious to everyone, we need to get some wins on the board rather than draws, but we’re competing in all games.
I’m a miserable “glass half full” type in general, but yeah, the team’s done well so far.
Apart from bringing a couple of quality loanees in, and temporarily at least (!) getting Thompson fit and playing well to beef up the weak early season midfield, I'd be interested to hear what people think we did to go from a bit (or a lot v Blackburn and Derby) off the pace early season, to becoming so competitive now.
Wide players offering more support to the full backs is probably one big thing.
Any others as such?
@chairboyscentral you're the kingpin of analysis, any thoughts or stats?
Same here. I’m not generally prone to bouts of positivity but this team are unbelievable. What’s most amazing is that despite a rocky start, nearly everyone is still playing with confidence, which has to be down to the culture at the club.
It’s one of the reasons I generally stay out of the Gasroom on match day. I find the hysterical overreacting, the ‘I’m hurting so much’ too annoying to tolerate. 2-2 at Preston, with three core midfielders missing, is a great result and keeps us in the fight.
I expected little this season and see it as a triumph that we are able to compete. If we can keep taking small steps forward, who knows what might happen.
I think the settled back line and beefed up midfield have been the main things. Our games have got tighter as I think we can all see. Wheeler going to left against Milwall was the firs time we had someone explicitly shielding JJ, but then that's been a role shared between wingers or a midfielder shifting over to cover - and in some games we haven't had one person obviously protecting him and he's held his own very well.
We couldn't really play our way until Bayo came back either - and with the addition of McCleary we've got an excellent, deep crop of attacking talent who can do a lot with the scraps Bayo wins. Some people seem to think Bayo's not been that creative, but he very much has been in a more indirect sense.
And in general I think we've just got up to speed with the division - physically and psychologically.
In terms of interesting stats, nothing comes straight to mind, but the Blackburn and Swansea games skew things a lot. They were the only two where we took a battering and didn't put up much of a fight ourselves (Millwall and Derby created a lot, but we were in both games). The frustrating one, which I really hope doesn't prove decisive in the end, was Rotherham - which we don't need numbers to tell us we absolutely should have won. Had we done, we'd be sitting pretty in 20th! After a third of the season, we're competitive, and we could climb out of the bottom three on Wednesday. All things considered, we're doing superbly.
Thanks for that - all good points.
Well said Shev.
I think Rotherham was a six pointer unfortunately
It's fine, we'll just win at their place
The only true six pointer in football is Sheffield Wednesday's slap on the wrist being downgraded to a light massage.
@Shev , it was a long read but he EFL published the full wording of the appeal last week. Having read it I can understand why the points deduction was reduced to 6 from 12.
Basically in the original sanction they took no account of the fact that the club did actually have a legally binding contract to sell the ground, all be it dated 3 weeks to late to be included in the
accounting period for 2017/2018 (?) as Sheffield Wednesday had done. These accounts had been signed off by their accountants.
There was a lot of legal jargon about if that complied with FSR(?) regulations, which it was ultimately concluded it did not. Hence they did fail the FFP test and a points deduction was given.
However, in applying the maximum sanction of 12 points they did not apply any reduction for mitigation which the EFL rules dictate.
Since there was an actual sale of the ground the points deduction was reduced from 12 to 6.
I understsnd it doesn't help us any, but you can't argue that the slap on the wrist being downgraded was anything other than fair.
Good info @Twizz, thanks. Have to agree with you.
If anyone wants to read the full text,
https://www.efl.com/siteassets/efl-documents/youth-alliance/201104---sheffield-wednesday-fc-v-efl-appeal---decision-final-201116.pdf
I was being facetious, but that's good to know. I don't feel as bad about having to (almost) send them down on merit now!