Disrespectful Carlos Carvalhal anecdote goes some way to proving Garry Monk's point about poisonous culture at Sheffield Wednesday

Speaking after the Owls’ 5-0 humiliation at Brentford, a result that is likely to be the most recent memory of his Wednesday side for a long time with weeks of empty schedule sprawled ahead of us, he said so himself.

Monk described a ‘deep-rooted culture’ at the club that makes it ‘impossible to be successful’ at S6, a fate managers before him have attested to before meeting their end.

Fittingly it was on a miserable mid-January night in Wigan that we first heard that things had been ‘too comfortable for too long’ at Hillsborough, the attitude of the changing room questioned for all to ponder at the outset of the Owls’ hapless run of post-Christmas form.

“There is not enough desire, determination and strength of character,” Monk said weeks later at Griffin Park.

“If you want to be successful, there has to be a determination and a fire that is lit underneath you, not just from the whole group but from individually within. There is not enough of that at this football club.”

Debate has been rife among the fanbase as to whether to blame the manager or players for this season’s failings, but an anecdote told by former fan favourite Ross Wallace about the final throes of Carlos Carvalhal’s reign three years ago suggests a lack of respect and responsibility even then.

Picking up the tale with Carvalhal entering into a team meeting with the team faltering and their manager under pressure for his job, Wallace, now at St Mirren, admitted that with results taking a downturn he had ‘had enough’ of the Portuguese and that he wanted him out of the club.

“He [Carvalhal] was fuming,” he told Open Goal. “We had lost a few and we weren't playing good.

“He came in and he had these glasses. He had them in his pocket. He said, 'today I am finished' and I was like 'Yes! He's been sacked! I've had enough of him'.

“He was like, 'today I am finished, I am done'. He blamed us! He said 'all you have got me sacked, I am finished'. We were like, we're gutted for you mate but s**t happens, we've lost a few games.”

Carvalhal, who was known to offer eccentric methods of getting his point across from time to time, remains a popular character in Wednesday circles. Wallace goes on:

“He turns around, faces the wall, he's got the top brand specs that still have the glass in it, puts them on, it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

“He puts them on and goes 'this is the new me' with his Topman shades on. I was sat next to Hoops [Gary Hooper] and under the table, we were like that [trying not to laugh].

“Before that, a few of the lads had said when we were playing or something 'f*** off you're s**t' and it wasn't good enough or whatever, he just turned around and said 'this is the new me' and we were like 'oh my god'.

“You know what the WhatsApp groups are like with the lads in the dressing room, the glasses with the nose and the moustache the lads were photoshopping them on the manager.”

The reaction to Wallace’s seemingly outburst has angered Wednesdayites and has left many Monk sceptics scratching their chin on whether the Owls boss has a point.

Repeating his belief that he ‘knows what a successful changing room looks like’ several times this season, the 41-year-old has gone about transforming the changing room, with senior men Keiren Westwood and Sam Hutchinson frozen out of first-team involvement and with three loan signings brought in.

Youth players such as Alex Hunt and Osaze Urhoghide have been awarded additional first-team responsibility having impressed with their attitude in training and the likes of Moses Odubajo and Jacob Murphy have earned plaudits from Monk for fighting their way back into favour at the club after weeks watching on.

Cameron Dawson and Morgan Fox are two players that the Owls boss has praised for how they go about things at Middlewood Road – Dawson signed a new four-year contract earlier this year and Fox is in negotiations with the club.

And it is their attitude that needs to become the standard at Wednesday going forward, Monk maintains, a mission he wants to steer though he is all too aware of the fact results need to improve fast when football returns.

Asked by The Star whether the Wednesday job had proven to be a bigger task than even he could have imagined, Monk said: “I knew certain things from the outside regardless, then obviously when you come in you see certain things.

“There is a culture here that will never ever be successful. There is not enough desire, determination and strength of character.

“There are other wider issues that I don't want to get into right now but I think everyone knows at the club.”

And the Owls boss made clear that if he is to taste the same fate as Carvalhal and Luhukay before him and meet the chop, history will keep repeating itself unless drastic decisions are made.

“Regardless of who is sat here, they will face the same problems until change comes,” he said. “That will come in the summer for sure, regardless of whether it is me or anyone else.”