Sheffield Wednesday’s promotion challenge has derailed in recent weeks.
I love Carlos Carvalhal. We all do, don’t we? He’s charming, he’s passionate, he’s the head coach that delivered Sheffield Wednesday’s best season in a generation.
But only one thing seems to matter these days – and that’s results. Wednesday’s top-six squad is underachieving, of that there is little doubt, and while Carlos may be the man to lift them from their post clocks-back slump, the Owls’ chairman does not seem the type to wait patiently for that to happen.
Since acquiring the Hillsborough outfit in 2015, Dejphon Chansiri has made a succession of ballsy decisions, like replacing a steady boss in Stuart Gray with an unknown quantity in Carvalhal, all-but eradicating the club’s famous white stripes and (seemingly) picking this season’s squad numbers out of a hat.
What the Thai wants, he seems to get, and promotion by September 2017 remains firmly on his list – it’s why he spent more than £10 million trying to improve the squad in the summer transfer window.
Wednesday, though, have dropped to 10th in the Championship following back-to-back defeats, both against sides in the bottom half of the table – one of whom doubled their tally of away goals in one trip to Hillsborough. Up next? Visits to in-form Fulham and underachieving Wolves – where we’ve won once in the league since 1968 and who recently appointed a new manager in Paul Lambert.
Were the Owls to lose both, they’ll have accrued more defeats than victories this season, without having visited Newcastle, Brighton, Leeds or Aston Villa – arguably the division’s form sides at present.
No matter our affection for Carlos, Chansiri surely won’t tolerate that – and who could really argue?
We can only hope, for the Portuguese’s sake, that the Ipswich result will spark Wednesday into life.
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