'Enough is enough' - Barry Bannan explains Sheffield Wednesday boycott decision and details difficulties
Sheffield Wednesday captain, Barry Bannan, has heaped praise on his Owls teammates for the professionalism they’ve shown this summer.
It’s been a chaotic few months at Hillsborough amid unpaid wages, transfer embargoes, concerns over the stadium’s suitability, and much more going on while radio silence remains from the man at the helm, Dejphon Chansiri.
There was a burst of good news last week after it was confirmed that, in spite of everything, Bannan had decided to extend his stay at S6, but there are still question marks over their ability to put out a team against Leicester City this weekend, and the Scot was talking this morning about how difficult it had all been.
Speaking on talkSPORT this morning the Owls skipper said, “It’s really hard, because it’s not only the wages and stuff that we’ve been facing in the last couple of months. Since we came back to preseason we obviously had the pitches that weren’t ready, so we were training on astroturf for a bit.. And you know modern day footballers don’t really get on with that.
“We went away to St. George’s, but had the U21 coaches, Andy and Giles Coke, step in when the manager didn’t come back. So on top of not being paid, which isn’t nice, there have been loads of things that - from the outside - you probably don’t see…
Sheffield Wednesday’s players have had enough
“The lads have been brilliant since we came back. I can’t complain. I thought it’d be hard to come back and keep the group going, but they’ve been ultimate professionals and come in and work hard every day. There are loads of excuses to pull out, but they’ve been amazing.
“But it’s hard, because we don’t know what to do. This never happens, it’s never happened to us, so we don’t know what the rules are or what we can do as a group of players.”
‘Baz’ went on to suggest that there will be no ‘strike’ per se as the Leicester game looms close, but did explain the thinking behind boycotting last weekend’s planned friendly against Burnley.
He said, “We pulled out of the Burnley game at the weekend, and that was simply because it’s happened too much now, and it’s a lot easier to pull out of a preseason game than a Championship fixture… We’ve come in to training and just got on with it, and made it look to the outside world that we’re fine and getting on with it, so this was a choice to say ‘enough is enough’, really.
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