Exclusive:Time, the ultimate goal and 'wanting more' - Sheffield Wednesday star Callum Slattery on the state of things
Callum Slattery is a player who has already struck a chord with Sheffield Wednesday supporters. Alex Miller spoke to him in his first in-depth interview as an Owls player.
There’s a pause in the air after Callum Slattery explains that the Sheffield Wednesday players assembled at double-speed this summer have all done so with the same ambition in mind.
The all-action midfielder is speaking to The Star at their Middlewood Road base and is in an open and relaxed mood following a training session in what feels to be the longest international break in football history. As one of the earliest additions to a whirlwind summer that saw 18 senior additions brought to the club, the joke is made that, actually, he is one of the changing room’s old-time stalwarts.
The mood is friendly but the task at S6 is a serious one. For all the reality of these early stages of such a monstrous rebuild, for all the challenges of pulling an entirely new squad together on a restricted budget in one summer and from a base of nothing, a club of Wednesday’s size in League One is always going to have a high level of expectation. It’s part of the of challenge that comes with representing such an institution - and is one of the selling points that allowed Wednesday to persuade players of Slattery’s quality to climb aboard the mission.
“Everyone knows what the job at hand is,” Slattery says through momentarily steely eyes. “I think that's the main thing. Whether they’ve come here later on in their career or in the middle of their career, everyone's got the same goal coming here.
“That makes it easier for everyone coming in the building. They know what they're coming into and what the aspirations of the club really are, rather than just coming in and not knowing what it's going to be like. You know from the first day what's expected at a club like this and what the end goal is.”
And then comes that pause. As if to request formal confirmation as to what is already abundantly clear to those present, the question is raised; ‘And what is that goal?’
“It's promotion,” he smiles. “We've had plenty of chats around it, with the squad and the staff, about the percentages of the teams go down and how long it takes them to go back up. It’s not an easy thing to do. And we want to change the kind of narrative around all that for ourselves.
“Obviously that's tough for a brand new squad, but if you look at the start we've had, a bit up and down and maybe performances could be better. But I think results-wise, if you'd have offered this to a lot of people at the start of the season or in pre-season, they would have snapped your hand off.”
Wednesday sit second in the early days League One table having lost one game. As advertised by the club this week, long-standing records have been overcome both on and off the field and only one league match has been lost in their seven - to table-topping Bradford City. All this after the mania of the summer and off the back of possibly the most draining campaign in EFL history.
There’s an acceptance from within that amid that run of form, performances have not been where they envisage them being in the longer-term, with the rampant 7-2 win over Bromley seen as the team’s faraway standout showing to date. Back-to-back goalless home draws drew anxiety from a section of the supporter base and Owls boss Henrik Pedersen has spoken openly about the need for time to properly instil a playing identity to the team.
It’s a theme Slattery picks up when asked how about the players feel about the wider debate over results over performance so far - and where the team is at less than a month and three league games on from the closure of the transfer window.
“I just think we know that within ourselves, with the players that we've got in the building, we can probably produce more,” he says. “And that's always a good mindset to have. It would be so easy for us as a squad now to be like, ‘We're second in the league. We’ve lost one in seven, happy days, it's going to be an easy season, a joyful ride.’
“But we're coming away from games and we've won them or we’ve drawn nil-nil, we still want more from each other. You want more from yourself on the pitch and you want to get back out on the training pitch and work on things. We’re a team that wants to work on what we can do better as a team, what we can do better individually.
“We're getting the results and still we’re wanting more from the performances that’s only a good sign really. A lot of teams would snap your hand off for the results that we've had and be very happy. We’re wanting more.
“It’s such a cliché word, but it is about gelling. It's a new squad and we need to gel. It's also just playing together with the feeling of dominating games as well as getting the results. Playing for a club this size in League One, we want to be coming off feeling that we've dominated games, whether that be chances, possession, chances created and stuff like that. We know we can dominate games. It's just about going out and doing that.”
The white-knuckle nature of the early weeks of any EFL season don’t allow for a great deal of time on a training ground to drill home technical aspects of a playing style that with time, all being well, become instinct over thought. Pedersen himself has put an onus on the importance of ‘free weeks’ without fixtures, with more time available away from travel and recovery to work on the fluency of his new squad.
So what of the importance of this long, three-week break away from the hustle and bustle of league action? Players and staff were given time off to recharge but are back in at Middlewood Road preparing for what comes next. Beyond the comparative fluff of a EFL Trophy run-out with Sunderland’s under-21 side on Tuesday evening, October 10 provides the next test and a trip to Huddersfield Town - a side that hold the same ambition as Wednesday for when May comes around.
“I think you can see it from both angles really,” Slattery says on the timing of the break. “You can see them as beneficial, you can see them as a bit annoying as well, because if you've got momentum of results and stuff like that and that gets put on hold. But like I said, we've obviously been wanting more from ourselves on the pitch. So it's been good that we've had the time to rest up. It's been a flat out start really. So you do need that time working on some things on the training pitch.”
Callum Slattery come across as a driven figure in a squad pulled together with drive and personality in mind. In the mind of Wednesday’s most all-action new addition, it’s clear there is no doubting the ultimate goal. In terms of the pizzazz and panache that comes with it, there’s a feeling that time is required.
There’ll be more to come from our exclusive interview with Callum Slattery at thestar.co.uk.