Another week has come and gone, and once again Sheffield Wednesday have failed to win.
Their draw with Birmingham on Saturday made it just one win in 12 league games for the Owls, but they came painfully close to picking up all three points on Saturday.
Wednesday scored three away from home, but their defensive frailty cost them dearly.
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To be fair, problems may have been inevitable after Osaze Urgohide’s red card last week left them short, but the reality is that it wasn’t Urgohide’s indiscipline that cost the Yorkshire club, it was Garry Monk’s stubbornness.
The solution to Monk’s problems seemed rather simple, stick Dominic Iorfa at right-back and bring in someone to cover at centre-half, but the manager didn’t see it that way.
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Instead, he changed his whole system to a five at the back, moving the heavily-criticised Joey Pelupessy to full-back.
Predictably, this didn’t work and at half-time Monk took Pelupessy off.
Unfortunately, this was the sign of another tactical reshuffle as Iorfa was also substituted, with Connor Wickham and Morgan Fox entering proceedings.
This didn’t solve anything for Wednesday as they went on to draw 3-3, but this may have all been avoided if Monk wasn’t freezing out Sam Hutchinson.
Statistically, Hutchinson is Wednesday’s best defensive option, and if Monk wanted to play a five at the back system he would have been a great addition to the side alongside Tom Lees and Julian Borner.
This would have allowed Iorfa to move out to the right, meaning Pelupessy wouldn’t have had to fill in a spot he’s only played in seven times in his career.
Monk overcomplicated things just to avoid bringing Hutchinson back into the fold, and in the end that cost the Owls with strong attacking output being undone by the three goals they shipped at the other end.
In other news, Wednesday fans are fuming with Garry Monk’s recent comments.
