Sheffield Wednesday have suffered a defensive crisis ahead of Friday’s visit of Reading.
Sheffield Wednesday’s Glenn Loovens (front left) was touch-and-go ahead of Friday’s fixture
It was the position which was perhaps most in need of strengthening yet, eight months on, Sheffield Wednesday are struggling to cobble together two recognised centre-backs for a crunch game against their closest play-off rivals.
Tom Lees, who has not played at all since late January, and Glenn Loovens, who hobbled off against Aston Villa six days ago, are likely to be thrown in against Reading at Hillsborough, whether they’re ready or not.
Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal, who brought back Vincent Sasso on a free transfer in August, claimed recently he’d opted against making additional defensive recruits having failed to find ‘value for money’ – which is fair enough. But in hindsight, the Portuguese has been proved horribly wrong.
Each of Wednesday’s main promotion rivals (discounting Newcastle, who were always destined to blow all other comers out of the water) managed to add to their options with players the Owls could, and perhaps should, have competed for.
Brighton, who boast the Championship’s best defence this season, paid £4.46 million for Shane Duffy (Transfermarkt), while Leeds will spend £3.4 million on Pontus Jansson when the Swede’s loan turns permanent this summer – significant investments, yes, but ones worth making, as both clubs’ fans will attest.
But Wednesday didn’t have to spend big – Huddersfield paid £1.87 million for Christopher Schindler, Reading spent around half that on Liam Moore, while Fulham borrowed Tomas Kalas from local rivals Chelsea. And though stats do not always tell the whole story, all five of the above score higher than Lees, Loovens and Sasso in WhoScored.com’s Championship player rankings for 2016-17.
Mistakes happen, and Sam Hutchinson’s early-season displays perhaps helped to paper over the crack. But as soon as it became clear the Owls’ midfield simply could not function without the former Chelsea man being in it, they were always in danger of coming unstuck – and could still do between now and the end of May.
Sheffield Wednesday miseed Sam Hutchinson’s tenacity in midfield
January reinforcements should have been, and perhaps were, sought at that point, but winter is always a difficult market in which to operate and very few Championship-standard centre-backs ended up moving clubs – with Reading’s £3.66 million capture, Tiago Ilori, the only one of note.
Whichever division they’re in next season, Wednesday must avoid a repeat of last summer’s oversight.
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