The bottle-shaped gift Sheffield Wednesday need to fend off Ghost of Christmas Past

A year ago, Sheffield Wednesday went into the Christmas period full of festive spirit and New Year optimism.
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A run of just two defeats in 13 had Garry Monk’s men in third and tipped for a play-off place; the dreamers had automatic promotion as something realistically worth striving for.

Then it all went horribly wrong. Wednesday would win just four more league games and there was a point when people began worrying that Premier League ambitions were being replaced by a fear of spending the next season in League One.

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It was a dramatic, almost unfathomable slump and in some ways the squad is still coming to terms with it. As Tony Pulis pointed out recently, the Owls had become used to not winning matches.

Sheffield Wednesday's Tom Lees says the Owls need to learn to be more resolute and better deal with setbacksSheffield Wednesday's Tom Lees says the Owls need to learn to be more resolute and better deal with setbacks
Sheffield Wednesday's Tom Lees says the Owls need to learn to be more resolute and better deal with setbacks

That said, one of the squad’s more experienced players believes there has been a lot taken on board over the past 12 months and what they have learned now needs to be put into practise.

If they were to collectively ask for a Christmas gift, it should be bottle-shaped.

"I think you learn a lot more about yourself, you learn a lot more about your teammates when your backs are against the wall and things are going badly. It's easy when you are winning,” said Tom Lees.

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"Little moments of disappointment or a couple of losses we need to handle better because they soon escalate and seem to spiral. That's what happened a couple of times.

"This time a year ago things were going well and a couple of losses and it spiralled into the way the season finished. This season, we started pretty well and then a couple of losses and we didn't handle it as well. I think that's repeating.

"Good teams might lose one or two games and then they bounce back and go on another run. I think that's where this team and this squad needs to improve because things seem to spiral out of control and become a lot bigger.

"We need to address that better but looking forward now we have got one win [against Coventry on Saturday] and we just need to build on that. There are going to be blips, there are going to be losses, you are not going to win every game but the good teams lose one or two games and then they are back on it.”

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A lot of the responsibility for that change in mentality will come down to Lees, not just as an experienced player but one that as a defender is at the heart of what Pulis is aiming to fix in the early part of his Hillsborough reign.

Strengthening the backline, protecting it and making Wednesday hard to beat has evidently been a priority.

"When you have a defeat, it's about bouncing back and part of that is about being resolute, when you do concede it doesn't go to two, three, four; try to keep it to one,” Lees added.

"It's just about having that when things are against you and your backs are against the wall, whether in a moment in a game or over a month it's about being able to stand up to it and put a stop to it and I don't think we've been good enough over the last year at handling setbacks.”