Is THIS the moment Dejphon Chansiri hinted there would be a change of manager at Sheffield Wednesday?

The Thai businessman, who sacked the 41-year-old today after a run of form that has seen the Owls win only seven of their last 31 matches, made the bold claim that this season’s aims for the club were to reach the playoffs.

And asked about Monk’s future, Chansiri said that the target of each of the managers he has worked with since arriving at the club almost six years ago has been steadfast: promotion to the Premier League.

“At the moment, he is still here,” Chansiri said. “I always back my coach 100 per cent all the time.

“He knows what he needs to do from the start of his job. We have talked about our target. Every coach is the same.”

Much has been made of the transition Monk had spoken about taking the club on, having overseen a large squad turnover.

The Owls currently sit second-bottom of the Championship after their 12-point deduction for financial misconduct was halved last week.

“We need to gel the team,” Chansiri said. “But as a professional I don’t think they need too much time to gel the team. The problem is inconsistency.

“It doesn’t mean that because we have new players that we need time, so we don’t expect to go up or get to the playoffs. We still expect this.

“Otherwise, why do we need to recruit many players? I can waste my money better if we don’t expect to go up.

“Every coach in my time here, the target has been to go up. Not the playoffs.

“When they speak to me, the talk is to go up, that the squad is good enough to go up.”

On whether he had considered sacking Monk, the chairman said: “It's easy to say sack the manager. You need to think, okay if we do that who will we bring in?

“We need to think who will come and who's available. That's not easy.

“Football is different from business. All managers have ability. They know how to manage but it depends on many things, such as luck and situations.”

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