Sheffield Wednesday's troubles continue | Everything but the Prem
Everything but the Prem is back and looking at both ends of the Championship table this week. Chris Holt is joined by George Hodgson to find out how Preston have managed to get to the top after seven games, while at the bottom Sheffield Wednesday's troubles continue and Joe Crann is here to tell us if there is any way out of it for the Owls.
Transcript
00:00 We're back after what has been a very busy week in the EFL but one where in the Championship
00:11 at least not a great deal has changed since you last joined us. The teams at the top end
00:15 are still going strong while those at the bottom continue to prop up the table. And
00:19 that's the theme of today's show as we take a look at the surprise package of the season.
00:23 Preston who sit proudly at the summit while at the other end, Sheffie Wensley, aren't
00:28 quite rock bottom but they aren't far off it. Welcome to Everything But Prem.
00:33 Joining us this week we have from the Lancashire Post Northend reporter George Hudson to give
00:38 us some insight into how Preston has found himself as the league high flyer so far. And
00:43 from the start Drew Graham will be desperately attempting to find some positives from what
00:48 has been a miserable campaign for the Isles up to this point. Welcome George and Joe.
00:53 How are you?
00:54 Been bad.
00:55 One of you certainly, I was going to say one of you certainly in finer form than the other.
01:03 George we're going to start off with you as the league leaders, Preston. It's fair to
01:13 say I think if people were to make a prediction at the start of the season they would probably
01:18 put Preston somewhere around about mid table I would have thought. Steady Championship
01:22 outfit. Last season we saw very good at the back but couldn't score any goals. That seems
01:30 to have been rectified this season and now you've found yourself seven games in and top
01:38 of the table. What has been the difference?
01:43 I think the summer business has been really good at the club. I don't think the goal threat
01:47 was there last season. You mentioned the clean sheets and stuff which is great but Preston
01:52 didn't have enough players in the team capable of scoring goals and I've seen a stat yesterday.
01:56 I think from the summer signings already there's been ten goals and seven assists which is
02:02 just brilliant. There wasn't much optimism heading into the season. If anything I think
02:07 fans were a bit worried that maybe the league looks tougher than ever. Maybe we'll be down
02:11 there for the first time since coming up in eight years or whatever. But to be top of
02:17 the league is just incredible. A couple of favourable fixtures coming up I would say
02:23 and if Preston can be still up there by October you just don't know what they can go on to
02:29 do but it's very much one game at a time I think.
02:33 We're going to go into that in a minute because if I can tell you what we're going to do it
02:38 now and I really don't want to be disparaging here. However, having looked at the results
02:43 that Preston have had so far there haven't been many huge challenges. If you look at
02:51 who they've played, Sunderland probably the best of them maybe. Obviously the biggest
02:59 challenges are ahead but there's nothing wrong with that really is there? I think if you
03:05 talk to any team building up momentum at the start of the season is a really important
03:09 thing to do.
03:10 Yes, and sometimes those games that look easier have been where Preston have struggled. In
03:15 recent years, going to the big boys sometimes when they come flying at you it can suit Preston
03:20 to hit on transition and stuff. But I think Sunderland was a big win, yes. I think a lot
03:25 of people fancied them to go well. Going to Stoke and winning felt really good at the time.
03:30 It's been really good. Four 2-1 wins so Preston are just finding that little edge. I don't
03:36 know if it's their underlying numbers or anything amazing but I just think early points are
03:41 priceless because it means Preston can afford maybe to have a little blip and they could
03:44 still find themselves in the seven points clear of seventh already. So if Preston end
03:50 up in the playoffs it would be an unbelievable season. I still don't think many people expect
03:53 them to be there, including fans, but why not? Why not just see how it goes?
04:00 I read a piece you did speaking to Liam Lindsay after the latest win over Birmingham and he
04:07 says that that lack of expectation that many of the other teams would have had in the division
04:16 is probably something that could help the squad because they can just go out there and
04:22 just do their thing without anybody worrying too much. Is that something you've seen? Does
04:26 there seem to be a little bit more confidence and comfort around without there being a lot
04:37 of teams panicking? Certainly Joe will tell you there's a bit of panic down the bottom
04:41 end.
04:42 Yes, I don't think there is any huge pressure at this stage but if you stay there for another
04:47 month or so then it will start to build and Preston will have to deal with that. I think
04:52 Preston has just a real togetherness about the group, a real spirit. I think Ryan Lowe
04:56 when he came to Preston wanted to play really nice, pretty football and I think the last
05:01 couple of years he's really learned that maybe that's not the way we're going to have to
05:05 do this. Maybe he's seen Luton last season and thought how can we get an edge on teams
05:09 with big budgets and he's just realised what Preston's got to be about as a club, no massive
05:16 money to go and spend and he's now got a really hard-working, honest group with a bit of quality
05:21 added this summer, looking abroad and things, a few clever loans, spent a bit of money by
05:26 Preston Standards and it's all kind of just come together and I think the managers improved
05:30 a lot as I say. They're not playing unbelievable football or anything but it's just pragmatic,
05:36 effective and there's a bit more of an identity about the team as well.
05:41 As we said earlier, defensively everything was sound for the most part last year. That
05:48 was the one thing that was kind of keeping them within reach of those play-offs, though
05:55 they never really looked like getting in there. But this year, although there's not a huge
06:02 amount of goals, there's certainly a lot more than there was last year. Who has stood out
06:08 for you so far? I mean we've seen Liam Miller, it seems to be a lot of what people are talking
06:15 about but I think certainly my surprise has been Will Keane hitting the ground running
06:22 very happily though.
06:24 Yeah, Will Keane had a loan with Preston in 2015 and he looked a really promising player,
06:29 tidy but just didn't have the goals. We had Troy Parrott on loan last season and he was
06:33 very, very similar to that and now he's this really polished centre-forward. He's got 26
06:38 goals, I know he's in League One but that's a hell of a lot of goals a couple of years
06:41 ago. I think he got 10 in a struggling Wigan team last season so that's been a really smart
06:46 pick-up, scored four goals already. Dwayne Holmes has been exceptional so far, I think
06:51 he's got three in all comps. Frockyar, Mads Frockyar, off the mark, two new signs on deadline
06:57 day both scored already, Liam Miller and Militant Osmeyec, good finish on Tuesday. So, just got
07:03 people chipping in, which is what you want from your attacking midfielders, your strikers.
07:07 Ryan Mill will be desperate for that to continue and one thing you'd say about him is his recruitment
07:11 of strikers has been exceptional really, while he's been at the club. Bringing Cameron Archer
07:16 in, Tom Cannon, both untested at the time. But he's obviously seen that they're capable
07:22 of scoring goals and now he's found a few more so, yeah, hats off to him.
07:27 Joe, all this positivity is absolutely alien to you at this stage!
07:33 I was going to say, what are these goals that you speak of?
07:38 Yeah, we'll move on to the bottom end.
07:42 We have to!
07:44 Well yeah, we do. We're not going to talk too much about the, we're going to try and
07:53 concentrate on what's happening on the pitch. For those who don't know, there was a bit
07:59 of a protest the other night, which seemed like the start of something rather than, it
08:05 certainly wasn't picked up in huge numbers but the throwing of the tennis balls onto
08:10 the pitch feels a little bit like the start of what could be a major protest against the
08:17 ownership of Dejan Pansy. However, on the pitch, things are dreadful really, aren't
08:26 they?
08:27 Yeah, look, the first half, the first half of the other night was probably the best we've
08:31 played all season. It's a take and it's on its own but the second half, again, they just
08:40 fell off completely. The first half, granted it was Middlesbrough and Middlesbrough are
08:44 really struggling. They're a strange team but they play some nice football, they knock
08:48 it about well, they create football into dangerous areas quite a lot. Especially in the first
08:54 half, it just didn't look like they had any intention of doing anything in the final third
08:59 and then Michael Carrick made a change at the break. He swapped out the left-back who
09:04 was getting torn to pieces by Paul Ballington and it kind of changed, that one sub changed
09:09 everything. They obviously got an early equaliser and then aside from maybe a five-minute spell
09:15 at the end of the game, Wednesday were gone. I think that will be a major frustration for
09:22 the manager at Wednesday is that he can't seem to get them to play for 90 minutes. We've
09:28 seen these patches, we've seen these spells where they've been decent but then the game
09:32 finishes and I think Wednesday finished with 38 per cent possession against the Middlesbrough
09:37 side that are bottom of the table and you're on home turf. Wednesday is not a nice place
09:43 to be at the moment, to go straight down the tunnel after the final whistle. When they
09:48 went off at half-time, they were 1-0 up, Masab would come on and score a really good goal.
09:53 They were cheered from the pitch and it felt a bit optimistic and by the time the final
09:59 whistle went they were all booed off again. That kind of feels like the way the club at
10:03 Wednesday continually seem to find themselves at the moment.
10:06 Has the manager mentioned or given any particular reason why he feels like they're unable to,
10:18 as you said, and this has been a major theme throughout the season, they're probably getting
10:21 a good 20-25 minute spell in almost every game where they're, maybe not on top, but
10:29 they're certainly competing and looking like they might get into games or go ahead or whatever.
10:35 Why is it that they're just not able to carry that out for an entire game?
10:39 He hasn't really seemed to come up with an answer. He's spoken about a few different
10:43 things. He's spoken about balance, he's spoken about physical condition is something he's
10:48 spoken about even. It's a tough one for him because I think he's not been throwing
10:57 his players under the bus or anything like that, but he has said on a few occasions that
11:00 he wants more from different people.
11:02 Just from a Wednesday perspective, the worry is that they're just still not creating enough.
11:10 There was an ironic cheer when Wednesday had the first shot on target, and that's kind
11:15 of the space that the club is in at the moment. People are just unhappy about a lot of different
11:20 things and obviously when they're unhappy about things off the pitch, when things aren't
11:24 going well on the pitch, it just exacerbates things even more. I think it's a tough one
11:30 for Chisco because there is obviously the major element of, I mean, I think at Borough
11:36 there was eight new signings started, so eight of the 11 weren't at Wednesday last season.
11:41 That's a big overhaul. It's a lot of changes and I think you do have to take that into
11:47 account. But as he's always pointed out, it's a results-driven business and as things are,
11:55 Wednesday don't have a win, they only have two points to their name. You look at a game
12:00 against Middlesbrough, this week feels like a big week. With Borough on Tuesday night,
12:05 they're below us. You've got Swansea at the weekend who are just a point above us.
12:09 I think if you come out of that without a win, then you start to look at the other games
12:15 and they do start to get that little bit more difficult after this one.
12:22 As George said earlier, whenever you get a lot of wins under your belt, it gives you
12:25 a bit of breathing space to kind of maybe have a little bit of a blip, go off form,
12:32 but conversely, when you're not picking up any points, it makes things more and more
12:40 difficult and the pressure piles on. And we've seen before, you find it harder and harder
12:46 to drag yourself out of that is the feeling now.
12:52 Given that most of us, perhaps optimistically now in hindsight, felt that Wednesday were
12:59 probably set for a fairly average mid-table position, is the feeling now, this is it from
13:10 now on, relegation battle from here on in?
13:14 I think it's difficult to see otherwise. As much as things could change, we don't know
13:18 what's going to happen in the future. Things might start to click with the new signings,
13:22 it might start to get better, but you can only deal with what you're seeing. And right
13:27 now what fans are seeing is a team that is going to be battling relegation. I was just
13:31 looking at the table now, I've tried to avoid doing that. We're already five points to 20th,
13:41 it's by no means unassailable or anything like that, but when these results don't start
13:46 to come, that gap gets bigger and I think that the confidence disappears and the atmosphere
13:54 of the stadium doesn't help. All these kinds of things pile on top of each other and I
14:01 think it's natural that players start to lose a bit of confidence in what's going on. I'm
14:05 not saying that is the case yet, but there's only so long that you can cling on to the
14:12 fact that it's coming. That's why it felt like this week, if they'd held on and beat
14:20 Borough, you get a Swansea with that win and possibly look to build on that. But having
14:24 lost the way that they did and finished... I think even if Wednesday had been behind
14:29 and drawn 1-1, having come from behind, that would have been better. But the fact that
14:34 they had a lead and were playing so well to let that slip, any momentum that you would
14:39 have had going into the Swansea game disappears. So it's just another difficult game for Wednesday
14:45 that if you get a result then great, but people will still say it was only Swansea, they're
14:52 not doing well. But if you don't get a result, it just throws more fuel on the fire.
15:00 The chairman, if we're to give the chairman any credit in a way, he's not one to make
15:08 snap decisions around managers. Sometimes he should pull the trigger before he eventually
15:17 does, but that would suggest that the Sisco Mínia is going to get the opportunity to
15:25 turn this around. But we're already starting to see the fans really starting to question.
15:35 We'll get a few games in, people will say, 'how much time do we give them?' Most people
15:39 will say, 'we're three or four matches in, we can't judge'. Now we're seven matches in,
15:49 that kind of rumbling is starting to get a little bit louder, isn't it?
15:53 Yeah, and I think that's natural. You're in a position where the team felt so settled
16:00 last season because of the way that it had been set up. That has all been thrown into
16:06 chaos this season. We were seven games in, we've seen a back four, we've seen a back
16:11 three, we've seen three or four different formations. I think that from a fan perspective
16:18 looking in, you're just looking for signs. You're looking for signs that things are going
16:24 to get better. Then obviously you have the two-week international break and you think,
16:28 'ooh, this could be the chance that they sort things out'. Then obviously they played against
16:34 Ipswich and they were really bad. So after that, then fans go, 'well, what are we actually
16:39 doing over this break?'
16:42 I think there's a reason this is prime changing season in football in general because you've
16:48 got three international breaks. There was one this month, there's one next month, one
16:53 in November as well. So they're prime time slots for changes. But I just think with the
17:03 way that the chairman is, as you say, he's not trigger-happy. He's not one who's, other
17:09 than Tony Pulis, which there was very obvious reasons why that needed to happen. But that
17:15 being said, I think this is the worst start of the Wednesday of a season since 1999/2000
17:19 and that season did not end well either.
17:21 Yeah, George, looking back up at the top, like I said before, everything's kind of rosy
17:32 at the minute. The expectations still aren't particularly high. But probably everyone's
17:40 expecting the likes of Leicester to start pushing, or really pushing up and get better
17:49 and better and better as things go along. Probably what the biggest fear, I would guess,
17:57 would be the teams who are a little bit further behind, kind of in around 7, 8, 9, like Leeds
18:05 for instance, who look like they probably could start cranking into gear. Would that
18:12 be the feeling from your point of view, that there are teams who are just simply going
18:17 to get a lot better than the starts that they've had?
18:20 Yeah, they're going to do, aren't they? You'd be absolutely gobsmacked if they don't. But
18:26 Leicester are up there already. Teams are going to come. But Preston, like I say, early
18:30 points can only help them. But just listening to Joe there, when we had Frankie McAvoy a
18:37 couple of years ago, there was no identity about the team. Fans weren't particularly
18:40 interested in you turning up. I felt like fans were almost ready to jump on anything.
18:47 Ryan Lowe's been given time and he's slowly turning it around. He was really under the
18:52 pump seven months ago, home game against Wigan, 1-0 down at half-time. You're thinking, if
18:57 you lose this game, it could be over really. And then he managed to turn that around and
19:02 he's been given time. And now Preston have an identity about them. So even if they fall
19:06 away, fans are enjoying watching the team at the minute. It's a bit more relatable.
19:12 So yeah, to be where they are now is like a start beyond the wildest dreams. So however
19:20 long it carries on, they'll just enjoy it. But he always says if you can be up there
19:24 with 10 games to go, you take that every day of the week. Still have a chance to break
19:28 into the top six or stay in there, whatever. So yeah, it's going well at Preston at the
19:33 minute, to be fair.
19:36 As a former Sheffield Wednesday player, Joe, I think it's fair to say Ryan Lowe would
19:42 be welcome back with open arms, but it kind of feels a little bit like he's overtaken
19:47 them a little bit now, isn't he?
19:49 Do you know what? I literally had some messages of people saying, why don't we go and get
19:53 Ryan Lowe? And I'm like, have you seen the table? On what planet do we think that he
19:59 would like, if Wednesday we're looking for a manager, as much as Ryan Lowe, I know he
20:05 still likes it at Wednesday and that. And obviously he was a really popular figure at
20:10 Illsborough. But I just can't think in what world he would go, yes, that would be a smart
20:15 decision.
20:16 This is kind of a...
20:17 He wants to manage him or something, I read.
20:22 Yeah, we ran the story before when I think there was a little bit, it was possibly around
20:30 when Poulis left, possibly.
20:32 It was either then or after Gary left, one of the two.
20:37 Yeah, possibly after Monk left, where he kind of half-heartedly, not throwing his hat into
20:44 the ring, but just made it very clear that he'd be open to it. And fans were very much
20:51 of that thinking as well, but it didn't appear to come round. He is the kind, I mean, that's
21:00 kind of that talk that you're saying there is kind of indicative a little bit of Sheffie
21:05 Wednesday fans, or many Sheffie Wednesday fans who still believe that it is 1992 and
21:12 they can get whoever they want.
21:15 It's looking very likely at this stage that we're about to see the return of Darren Moore,
21:20 Joe.
21:21 Just in time.
21:22 Just in time. That's a couple of weeks away, isn't it?
21:26 Yeah.
21:27 So, yeah, what do you think of the possibility of Darren doing well there? It's a difficult
21:35 one, isn't it, because he never really got, we haven't seen a lot of him actually at this
21:40 level because he went down to West Brom, I think he was about six matches in, whenever
21:48 they got rid of him, whenever, after they got relegated. And he didn't have an awful
21:52 lot of time in the Championship either with Wednesday. I mean, they were already almost
21:57 destined to go down. So it's a little bit of a gamble, but I suppose he's shown enough
22:03 since then to suggest that he could be a good appointment for Huddersfield.
22:08 Yeah, I think it looks like a nice fit, you know, him and Huddersfield, because obviously
22:15 they are thinking long term. That was one of the things that was said when it was said
22:20 that Warnock was going, was that they are looking for a manager who's going to have
22:23 a long-term plan. And obviously Warnock's days of long-term are a bit behind him now.
22:30 And I think there's obviously, you look at someone like Darren, he's incredibly well-liked,
22:35 his reputation is very good. His stock's really high at the moment after what he did at Wednesday
22:40 last season. And I think there's also the element of, you know, he worked for, well
22:44 played under Neil Warnock at Torquay, so he'll come with a glowing recommendation from Warnock
22:50 as well. So, yeah, it feels like the right fit. He's obviously been in Yorkshire a plenty.
22:55 He was at Donny's. He's obviously spent two years at Wednesday. And yeah, it feels like
23:02 a very, it's a bit of a risk, I think, with anyone who's not had too many games in the
23:09 Championship, but it feels like a solid choice from Huddersfield if it does happen. And yeah,
23:14 obviously, I mean, I think I speak for everybody, pretty much everybody at Wednesday anyway,
23:18 and just say I wish him all the best because what he achieved at Wednesday was brilliant.
23:22 And I think he's earned the right to be a Championship manager this season.
23:27 Anyway, that's us for this episode of Everything But The Prem. Join us again next time where
23:32 we'll go over, once again, all the major talking points from the AFL. Thanks again to George
23:38 and to Joe for joining us and to you for watching. We'll see you again next time on Everything
23:44 But The Prem.
23:45 [Music]