Darren Moore must solve Sheffield Wednesday’s George Byers headache ahead of tricky triple

Once derided as a ‘tinker man’ from more critical quarters in times more bleak, Darren Moore has prodded at his team’s plans throughout the season, trusting his players to work through the most detailed task sheets depending on the opposition at hand.

There’ll be 10 times the tactical and technical tweaks at play us mere mortals in the press box and in the stands haven’t noticed too – don’t underestimate the blindness of an untrained eye when attempting to analyse a professional football match.

A draw with Bolton Wanderers is no bad result and on the backdrop of a run scarcely believable, it’s a very, very good one.

But as is the case win, lose or draw there will be aspects of the performance Moore and his backroom team look to find answers for heading into their next match – which just happens to be a South Yorkshire derby against an in-form Barnsley just a few days away. Forest Green Rovers will look to stick one in the eye in what looks likely to be a League One bookend clash and then there’s another rapid turnaround trip to Cheltenham to contend with.

Figures show an impressive Bolton were able to enjoy 61% of possession on Friday evening as for the first time in a long time ceded control for periods. It was the most possession any away team has hoarded at S6 this season.

That has been a policy rather than a failure in some matches at Hillsborough but without the injured George Byers in the Wednesday midfield it looked as if they weren’t able to quite wrestle back control rather than handing it over voluntarily. The tempo belonged to Bolton.

Fisayo Dele-Bashiru was drafted in as Byers’ replacement in the midfield three, which changed the dynamic entirely. The youngster plays a completely different game to Byers and indeed to any other Wednesday player.

There were trademark bursts in possession and no little invention in tight spaces, but the defensive output offered coming in at Portsmouth last weekend wasn’t quite there and without Byers’ sit-in passing ability, the control and efficiency Wednesday have strangled the division with this season was loosened a touch.

“I thought he did well,” Moore told The Star post-match. “He did well at Portsmouth and warranted a start for us tonight. He worked tirelessly and he’s got that ability to open the door for us.

“There were a couple of occasions that for everything Bolton wanted to do, they just couldn’t match or handle him. He’s got that.

“To lose George but to be able to call on him is good. He’s a different player to George and it gives opposition teams a different dynamic to work with. His running on the ball is great but his running off the ball is also very effective, so he has both parts of it now.

“It’s another committed performance and he contributed in getting the point.”

While the control of the Bannan-Vaulks-Byers trifecta has been a weapon of mass destruction on the road in recent months, the removal of Byers from the fold – if indeed he is unable to feature – poses questions as to how Moore moves things around to get the best out of his midfield engine.

Some of Dele-Bashiru’s best Wednesday outings both last season and this have been on the road, blitzing midfield breakaways at the heart of things.

With a fast rotation of fixtures over the next fortnight, it’ll be interesting to see how things fall.

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