‘Heated discussions’ in Sheffield Wednesday changing room after calamitous Barnsley defeat

The Owls boss was left scratching his head as they were beaten 2-0 by their South Yorkshire rivals – who have now won back-to-back at Hillsborough for the first time since 1946 – with his side simply not at the races all afternoon.

Wednesday were booed from the field at half time and after the final whistle, and Moore insists that they were nowhere near where they need to be.

“I think the heated discussions were down to frustrations really,” he told The Star. “We just weren’t right at it today. The team we put out today was for the consistency of the last few game, but it’s fair to say today that they weren’t right… We weren’t a patch on what we’ve been – we’ll have a discussion with the group.”

The Wednesday manager gave credit to his opposite number, and his Tykes team, but was left bemoaning individual errors and a poor performances ‘across the board’ from his players.

“I’m still scratching my head with it really,” he went on to say. “It just wasn’t right today, right the way through. Usually our forte is being excellent with the ball, I just thought we were loose today with stray passes and just couldn’t get going.

“There was an incident in about the sixth minute, we just ran into bodies with the ball when it was on to play - and from there it just spiralled…

“I thought the turning point was when we had two chances at 1-0 - if we convert one of those then there’s enough momentum in the game to give us a lift. But we didn’t capitalise.

“We then got a sucker punch at a set piece, which I’ll look back at, but when I look back on it, we just weren’t good enough today.

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“Take nothing from Michael Duff and his team, they set their stall out, so credit to them for the win, but we weren’t where we needed to be at.”

“We’re honest as a group,” he went on to say. “And we didn’t execute the game plan… Me and the players know that.

“From our point of view we had too many off it. Hear me out, it’s definitely credit to Barnsley, but when I look at our individual performances right across the board we weren’t at it… You can’t play like that and expect to come out with the right result.

“It was right across the board, it wasn’t there. When it’s one or two… But it was across the board today, they couldn’t get it going for whatever reason.”

Wednesday could’ve had the chance to go top of the League One table this evening if other results had gone their way and they’d picked up three points, however they will instead finish the weekend in fourth place – four points behind leaders Ipswich Town and Portsmouth.

Next up for the Owls is a tough trip to Plymouth Argyle next weekend.

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