Alex Miller: Why Sheffield Wednesday revolutionaries may not have too long to wait when it comes to changes

The Owls boss, who arrived at S6 nearly five months ago, has time and again spoken about the challenges of arriving six matches into the season - a challenge he had yet to encounter until this, his fifth permanent appointment.

At each of his previous clubs, he’d moved on and brought in new players before his side had kicked a ball - this is not ‘his Sheffield Wednesday’.

Across the leagues there is something of a stalemate developing in the January window and in Wednesday’s case, with so many first team players out of contract in the summer, it would have been a shock to see dramatic movement this month.

Monk’s public dressing-down of the character and desire of his changing room after their capitulation at Wigan went some way to confirming what many suspected - that wholescale changes to a squad that has been in his words ‘too comfortable for too long’ are now to be expected in the summer.

His is a rare opportunity for a manager walking into a big Championship club. Monk and the recruitment team have the option of freeing a hefty percentage of its wage bill, of bringing in a raft of new players and within his first year truly stamping a new mark on Sheffield Wednesday.

The addition of Dutch livewire Alessio Da Cruz offers an attacking threat and Manuel Hidalgo is one for the future, but it is in months to come that Monk will hope to bring in ‘his’ signings, carving out that future with a squad of young, hungry footballers in the mould of - in his words - Cameron Dawson and Morgan Fox.

That’s not to say further business definitely won’t be done before Friday at 11pm. Wednesday continue to make moves in a congested loans market and a deal for Crystal Palace forward Connor Wickham would be a monster boost.

But the feeling is that Owls supporters disappointed by a lack of revolution in this window won’t have too long to wait.