Finger pointing, Sarr’s redemption, The Quaner effect and picking over the remains – Notes on Town’s draw with Sheffield Wednesday

The dull draw with Sheffield Wednesday is most likely already only a vague memory for most Town fans and one they aren’t likely to want to revisit. So it barely seems worth bothering publishing this very late write up but it’s done so I thought I might as well put it out. 

With no Town game to watch today you can at least relive some of the tedium from our midweek game. If you think this article seems like a deliberate attempt to alienate my readers you may be right but it’s nothing compared to the series of Mick Wadsworth articles I’ve currently planning on putting together during the international break. (Not a joke!) 

Until then, here are my notes on the draw with Sheffield Wednesday… 

One of *those* games 

This was a poor game played out by two poor teams and it’s unlikely to live very long in the memory for anyone involved. The two head coaches played a tactical game of cat and mouse with each other, with both being too cautious at times. 

Tactics aside, I think this was one of those flat performances we’ve seen a lot of this season. Because of the congestion of fixtures and the mental fatigue that sets in, Town looked drab for the majority of the game and struggled to find any fluency. 

There have been plenty of games like this one so far this season and it won’t really matter as long as we reach our goal of staying up. Obviously fans want to see the players up for it in every game but the spark just wasn’t there in this match. 

I’d hope these kind of games become far rarer next season when the fixtures are spaced out more normally and we have a larger pool of core players to call upon. 

Pointing fingers for Sheffield Wednesday’s goal

I’m going to take a look at the Sheffield Wednesday goal in a bit more detail as there were more problems with it than it first seems.

The first thing to happen to turn a relatively innocuous situation into a dangerous one was Keogh stepping out of the back three to track Rhodes. This was fine, what he should be doing but Edmonds-Green should take a few steps inside to occupy the vacated space. 

Jordan Rhodes then plays a superb ball into the channel for Windass to chase. Again, I’m reluctant to criticise Keogh for not stopping it as it was a quality piece of forward play by Rhodes rather than poor marking. 

At the point Rhodes hits the pass Sarr has a good few yards head start on Windass but doesn’t use this advantage. If Sarr had read the danger correctly he could have potentially started the chase earlier and had a better chance of getting to the ball. He didn’t need to do that though, he just needed to get in the way and tangle himself up with Windass. It would either result in a relatively harmless free kick being conceded or would have slowed Windass down and made it harder for him to get through on goal. 

Once Windass got ahead of Sarr then there was only one winner in the foot race and Sarr was left with the Hobson’s choice of allowing him past him unimpeded or conceding a red card by bringing him down. Letting him through was the right choice at this stage of the game but in the same situation on the 85th minute I’d hope he’d sythe his man down and take the red. 

Even when Windass was past Sarr it wasn’t a hopeless situation. Edmonds-Green is tracking back and has the pace to get involved. Schofield can come out and make things tricky to the forward. Unfortunately neither made the key intervention that was needed. 

Looking at the replays it seems that Edmonds-Green expected Schofield to come out and he was trying to get to the goal-line in case a block was needed. Schofield stayed on his line far too long though, possibly because he thought Sarr was going to save the day. The few seconds pause he takes before coming off his line made it pretty easy for Windass to slot it past the keeper whereas Schofield could have made it a trickier finish if he’d been quicker off his line. 

The main reason we conceded was Naby Sarr was caught one on one with someone who was much quicker than him but this could have been overcome if Edmonds-Green or Schofield had responded to  the threat better. 

We need Sanogo from the start 

The medical team told Carlos it was too risky to play Sanogo from the start in this game but having seen the impact he can have when he plays, we need to get him up to full match fitness as soon as possible. 

I’m a Fraizer Campbell fan but when he’s a lone striker we lack something at the top end of the pitch. He grafts but doesn’t have the physical presence to bully defenders. Sanogo is less mobile but can occupy two defenders just by pushing into them and letting the other players exploit the space he’s created. 

There’s a bigger debate to be had about what it says about our ambition to get the ball down and play if we’re longing for a big target man to lump it up to but while we’re playing this way it’s daft to not have the players on the pitch that can do something with these long balls we’re playing. 

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Niasse may graduate from a B Team triallist into a properly signed player if his work permit business is ever sorted. He’d be an additional option for the big target man and may have a bit more in his locker too. 

Naby Sarr redeems himself

I’m not even sure you can blame Naby Sarr for the first goal, when we made a tactical choice to have him mark someone who is significantly faster than him. But if he did carry any blame for that goal then the account was balanced up with his contribution for the equaliser. 

The ball in was superb but Sarr’s dangling leg made a perfect contact to angle the ball towards the goal. The own goal could have been avoided if Patterson had been able to sort his legs out but when you’re on a bad run those are the kind of goals you let in, we know that all too well. 

Sarr’s ability at set pieces has been huge for us this season at both ends of the pitch. Contributing to scoring goals sticks in the memory but he’s just as important when defending too. I wonder if his aerial duel stats are a bit misleading because he’s typically not marking anyone and is tasked purely with attacking the ball, so he’s often not strictly duelling with anyone specifically but has a tendency to make key headed clearances which may not be recorded in the stats. 

Collin Quaner ruined Sheffield Wednesday 

Town have had their ups and downs since the playoffs in 2017 but Sheffield Wednesday have mostly had downs since Collin Quaner broke their hearts by setting up the own goal that tied the playoff semi-final and gave us the chance to win the penalty shootout. 

I was inside Hillsborough when Wednesday went ahead in that game and their fans started waving their phone torches around and I remember feeling like we’d blown our chance. Then it all turned around and the rest was history, Sheffield Wednesday have been in decline ever since. 

While I don’t have a lot of love for Sheffield Wednesday fans with all their talk about being massive and too good for the Championship, I do feel a bit sorry for them. In 2017 they had a team that had potential to compete in the Premier League if they’d made it through the playoffs. Since then they’ve declined to the point where they looked like relegation fodder when we played them this week and the fact they came away with a point is only a reflection of how poor Town were too. 

Picking over their squad like vultures 

It’s looking pretty likely that Sheffield Wednesday are going to be relegated this season, their league position suggests it but the lack of quality on the pitch on Wednesday night all but confirmed it for me. Which means there’s a potential fire sale coming for them in the summer as they attempt to cut costs. So, like ghouls picking over a closing down sale, our recruitment team are no doubt licking their lips at the potential for bargains. 

Town are already rumoured to be interested in Jordan Rhodes, who will be a free agent in the summer. However there are a few other players we might want to consider.

Josh Windass is another ex-Town player that we may fancy offering another chance to. I’ve a feeling he’s bitter about the manner of his Huddersfield Town exit but if we can talk him into a second spell I think he could do a job for us and is a better fit for the squad than Rhodes. He’s younger, more mobile and can play in a variety of roles as well as most likely being on lower wages. 

While I think Rhodes is one of the best finishers I’ve ever seen play for Town (him or Marcus Stewart, I can’t decide) I can’t see him fitting into this current Town setup. When he was at his best for Town he ran about very little, relying on Lee Novak to do the donkey work while he ghosted into scoring positions. While we may be able to nurse him back to his lethal best I’m not sure at his age he’ll want to reinvent his playing style to fit in with Carlosball, that requires maximum effort from every player on the pitch.

One player that I would like to take off Sheffield Wednesday’s hands would be Barry Bannan. He signed a new contract recently, so we might struggle to take him away but I’ve long been a fan of his ability to dictate play from the middle. He has the potential to be the first genuine replacement for Aaron Mooy since the Aussie genius left us for Brighton. While Bannon may also struggle with the workload too, I think he’s good enough at what he does to justify having other players around him to do his running for him. 

What next for Town? 

This game will either be a decent point or a missed opportunity depending on what the teams around us in the table do next. We’re now a healthy distance from the drop zone but games in hand for the teams beneath us make it hard to know if we can relax yet or not. 

With tricky games against Brentford and Norwich up next, we could easily see our buffer eaten into if we lose those two. So relegation is less likely since we halted our poor run of form but those fears could easily return if results go against us. 

I’m not too concerned about relegation this season but I am a bit worried about what happens after we achieve our target of safety. Do we go back to trying to play like Xavi and Iniesta era Barcelona or are we now a hoofball team? Or a bit of both depending on the opponent? We need to answer these questions before the next transfer window as there’s likely to be a lot of churn within the squad. It’s a chance to build a team more capable of playing Carlosball to a standard that will steer us clear of the next relegation battle and maybe even competing in the other half of the table. But we have to decide if that’s the kind of team we want to be and commit to the level of investment that will require. 

I can’t say I’ve got a lot of faith in our ability to improve from here. I like Carlos and admire his footballing sensibilities but I’m not sure we will be able to furnish him with the squad he needs to play an idealistic type of football.