"He will score" Danny Röhl unflustered by Ike Ugbo's Sheffield Wednesday wait
Danny Röhl has put his faith in forward Ike Ugbo finding his goalscoring touch for Sheffield Wednesday.
The Canada international is yet to find the net in his 448 Championship minutes this season and with the weight of a £2.5m summer move behind him, some supporters seem to be growing a little impatient. The fact is that Ugbo’s campaign so far has been one of few chances - he has a combined xG of 1.05 in the league, only the fifth-highest in the Wednesday squad - though the free-kick he headed over in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Burnley was surely his best yet.
Röhl has spoken to explain the good work Ugbo has offered against the ball and has no doubt that things will turn to the positive for a forward who has started only five of his nine Championship appearances this season so far. The hope is that with more chances created around him, he can reignite the sort of form that went so far to keeping the Owls in the Championship last time out.
“We know what he can do and we will keep going on this,” Röhl told The Star when asked about Ugbo’s contribution. “We know the moment will come and he will score. You know as a striker it is always hard when you don't score and today he had a big chance - but this is football. I think this is our job, we stay together. We win together, we lose together and we improve together. We will come through and the momentum will come back of course.”
Wednesday lost to title hopefuls Burnley with little balance either way in terms of chances. The Clarets are operating with an impressive finishing record having scored 16 goals this season from an xG of just 10.53 - in contrast, Wednesday’s xG across the course of the season so far is 12.28 and they have scored 11 times.
“I think what we can do is create more and more chances,” Röhl said. “This is what I can do with the players and when we look back since I arrived, we came many times to this topic. If we create more and more chances will will have a better chance to score. Today we had a better xG than them but the result is all that is important and the result is 2-0 to Burnley.”