Alex Miller: Time up on Garry Monk’s Sheffield Wednesday transition.. now, who next?

The walls had been closing in and out on Garry Monk for a very long time.
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He got the benefit of the doubt, from many fans, from the media, from swathes of the club’s frustrated fan base. His, in many ways, was the impossible job.

Because what he said was true. Sheffield Wednesday needed a huge revamp after years of meandering under-achievement, a task difficult enough in itself before the clown car of an EFL charge came screeching its way into Hillsborough, before a global pandemic slashed his likely budget and before, well, 2020 in general.

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It needed a brave manager, one that was going to dramatically reduce the average age of the squad and dramatically raise the mood of a fan base that had been punched in the gut by a blink-and-miss-it injection of optimism from Steve Bruce.

Monk was brave, possibly too brave for his own good as he froze out fan favourite duo Sam Hutchinson and Keiren Westwood, as he publicly questioned the character of an entire changing room and as he promised fans on several occasions that he would ‘build them a team to be proud of’.

The walls had closed in and were pushing on his cheekbones when the world stopped back in March days after he had trudged past the baying Owls support at Brentford. In an emotional press conference after that 5-0 defeat he, for the first time, seemed to accept that he may not be the man in the dugout come the summer.

The coronavirus crisis bought him time, you feel, and though there have been moments of suggestion at a brighter day, those walls never really expanded too far.

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“Time is what a manager dreams of”, he said on a number of occasions. And time, largely, he got. He was backed by Chansiri and those above him with the arrival of his coaching staff and in the transfer market.

Sheffield Wednesday has been sacked as manager of Sheffield Wednesday. Pic Steve Ellis.Sheffield Wednesday has been sacked as manager of Sheffield Wednesday. Pic Steve Ellis.
Sheffield Wednesday has been sacked as manager of Sheffield Wednesday. Pic Steve Ellis.

Not many managers at this level get to 14 months in a role having lost 5-0 twice and having presided over the worst home record in two generations. Very, very few get the level of backing he received midway through that run.

Had it stayed as it was after 92 minutes at Stoke City’s Bet365 Stadium on Boxing Day, who knows whether it would have unravelled as it did? That Potters injury-time double kickstarted a long and painful free fall to this evening’s club statement.

He was unable to stop it. After Steven Fletcher’s knee injury at Brighton a fortnight later, he was unable to get the forwards firing. After a week from hell that saw them lose to Brentford, Luton, Rotherham and Wyombe, he was always going to struggle to talk even the most supportive of supporters from the anti-Monk ledge.

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Not that it is all that relevant in the cut-throat world of Championship football, but Garry Monk is a good bloke who desperately wanted to turn things around at Sheffield Wednesday.

Despite the points deductions, the pandemic and the job he was left with, all he has to look back on now is by far the biggest black smudge on a damaged CV.

The big job Monk failed to complete seems even bigger all of a sudden. The question now for Sheffield Wednesday is, who next?

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