Sheffield Wednesday in review: How does the Owls' start to 2019/20 compare with recent seasons gone by?

Perhaps a good place to start is to compare it with those starts of seasons past. The last five seasons have seen the Owls onto their fourth full-time manager having scaled the heights of Portuguese play-off tilts and the lows of Jos’ losses.

But how has the club’s run to the final international break of the year going when pitted against those previous campaigns? Let’s take a look at how the last five seasons were going after 16 games.

Points and league position

Surely the most important of all the aspects to consider when weighing up early doors success, the 2019/20 vintage has edged out the club’s most recent previous efforts with a tally of 25 points, leaving them in eighth, one point better off than in both the full and ultimately successful seasons under Carlos Carvalhal.

Momentum may have been slowed of late by last-gasp heartbreaks at Blackburn and against Swansea, but the fact is that they have more points, more wins and sit higher at this stage than in the past five years.

The Owls have been notoriously slow starters in recent seasons but that was not an issue this time out, with caretaker boss Lee Bullen securing three wins in the club’s first four matches. Monk has taken that tally to seven, one more than in each of their other efforts.

This time last year the Owls sat in 17th place and in the previous seasons were sat in 11th, 10th and ninth respectively. Today they are largely in-line with the deficit to the play-off places than in the seasons they qualified under the Portuguese, three points off the pace this time out compared with a two-point gap in 16/17 and three in 15/16.

Scoring and defensive record

Wednesday goal difference is some 16 goals better than at this stage last year, with Monk’s defensively resolute Owls sitting on a difference of seven, compared with Jos Luhukay’s minus nine. The previous best in the last five years was the difference of just two achieved in Carlos’ last effort in 2017/18.

Their defensive prowess is far greater than in their previous efforts, having conceded only 14 goals in their 16 Championship outings, less than half the 30 goals shipped last time out. Luhukay, of course, would not go on to see Christmas in as a Wednesday boss.

And despite a perceived lack of cutting edge up front, the Owls have scored just as many goals at this stage as in any of their last five seasons with 21.

Up for the cup?

Wednesday’s love/hate relationship with the League Cup continued this season as a second-string outfit went out in the third round to Premier League Everton. A late 1-0 win over Rotherham in the second round had followed a solemn bye awarded in the wake of Bury’s financial struggles.

That frail effort pails into insignificance when compared with the 2015/16 efforts of Carvalhal and co, who by round 16 had taken the top tier scalps of Newcastle (0-1) and Arsenal (3-0) on their way to a quarter-final reversal at Stoke. The Arsenal result in particular, played out in front of Sky TV cameras, proved to be a benchmark for what Wednesday could achieve that season.

The second round is as far as the club reached in subsequent seasons as squad rotation took precedence.

Early season highlights and lowlights

A 4-1 blitz at Middlesbrough is surely Wednesday’s highlight of the season so far as two goals in the first six minutes set Monk’s men on their way against his former club. Had they held on at Cardiff that too would have been a stand-out moment, but otherwise the season could be described as Wednesday simply ‘doing the business’ in a series of impressive workmanlike performances and last gasp disappointments.

Looking back, a 1-0 win over a much-fancied Aston Villa on the opening day of 2016/17 was followed up by a coupon-busting win at table-topping Huddersfield in round 12 in what were eye-catching results, as was last season’s 2-1 win at Millwall and the 3-0 romping of Leeds in 17/18.

But the club have a nasty habit of dropping out of form heading into this international break, with this season’s nagging late disappointments falling some way short of Luhukay’s four defeats on the spin last season, culminating in an embarrassing 4-0 home defeat eventual champions Norwich.

New signings

Another area that this Wednesday campaign can be very proud of is their transfer hit-rate. While the signings of David Bates, Moses Odubajo and Jacob Murphy have failed to produce the goods on a consistent basis, free transfers Kadeem Harris and Julian Börner have been outstanding additions and Massimo Luongo, though now injured, looks a great fit.

Their success is perhaps only outstripped by the start of Fernando Forestieri, who having joined the season late from Watford scored five goals in his first nine games in a Wednesday shirt back in 2015/16.

That Börner signing can perhaps be most closely compared to that of Chelsea loanee Michael Hector last season, who despite the club’s defensive frailties stood out in the Owls backline. The same couldn’t be said of record signing Jordan Rhodes in 2017/18, who tasked with firing the club to the Premier League sat on only two goals after 16 matches in a frustrating start to his Hillsborough career.

See also Rhodes’ fellow new boy Joost van Aken, who looked unsuited to English football from the very start, and that man Almen Abdi in 16/17.