Some pre-season expectations had hopes of a playoff charge but it’s back to square one for the Owls after a poor first half of the campaign under Jos Luhukay.
We’re at the exact halfway point of the Championship season, with 23 games played out of 46, and following some difficult times this term, Sheffield Wednesday fans will surely be feeling good now at Christmas.
Under Jos Luhukay, things were not going well at all at Hillsborough – from 48 matches played since the beginning of his tenure in January, the Dutchman won just 16 games, and their last 10 fixtures had provided just one victory.
However, chairman Dejphon Chansiri – who pledged to listen to club offers at a fan forum a few days prior – eventually wielded the axe, and following Luhukay’s departure, the Owls secured a 1-0 win over Preston under Lee Bullen, which sees them spending Christmas in 17th place.
In the Guardian’s fan-led 2018-19 Championship pre-season preview, Wednesday fan Mark Rainey hoped for performances akin to last term’s strong finish as opposed to Carlos Carvalhal’s “negative tactics” and a playoff push, though he felt a mid-table finish would be more realistic.
Initially, Luhukay’s switch from the pragmatic approach which helped the Owls finish last season strongly to more fluid, attacking football yielded mixed results, and after 12 games of the 2018-19 campaign, they were sitting sixth in the table.
Since then, however, things quickly turned sour, with the manager’s inconsistent team selections and tactical line-ups proving a catalyst for a downward turn in form, and following his last game, Wednesday were 18th in the table and just five points clear of the bottom three.
Cue the club’s decision to axe Luhukay, cue a return to a more structured, less haphazard approach against Preston including four at the back, cue a display which yielded all three points and instantly boosted the mood in the stands.
Indeed, the full-time result against the Lilywhites prompted an outpour of relief from some of the Owls fanbase on Twitter:
At this stage of the season, it looks as if the Guardian’s pre-season prediction about Wednesday may have to be reassessed, and with a new manager set to come in ahead of the transfer window and the club out of the embargo which had hamstrung them in the summer, it’ll be a very interesting January.
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