Nuhiu’s exclusive club; Daft numbers – Five talking points from another Sheffield Wednesday defeat

After going in 3-0 down at halftime, Wednesday got back to 4-3 thanks to Jacob Murphy and Atdhe Nuhiu before Bobby De Cordova-Reid put the game to bed, but what were some of the key talking points?

Big Atdhe’s exclusive club

He’s a bit like Marmite, is Nuhiu. A man some fans love and others love to hate, but yesterday his second half brace put him in a very exclusive club.

The big Kosovan became only the second Owl this century to hit 50 goals for the club – the other is Marcus Tudgay, who managed it in 2010 – and has written himself into Wednesday’s history books.

It’s taken him a lot of games, 276 to be exact, but due to largely being used as a substitute he’s actually got a better minutes per goal ratio than Tudgay (and has more assists – 27/20). Love him or hate him, he’s played his part.

Monk’s done with some of these players

“It’s been too constant this second half of the season, I’m sick and tired of talking about these things… The majority can improve but that transition is coming, there will be personnel changes in that. To be successful that’s what we have to do.”

That quote speaks for itself, really. There are players at Wednesday who Monk thinks can do a job, and do it consistently, but there are clearly some that he doesn’t have faith. There’s going to be changes in the summer, that’s for sure.

Some of SWFC’s numbers are daft

Yesterday was the ninth time this season that Wednesday have conceded 3+ goals in a game this season, but also the seventh time they’ve scored 3+ goals away from home. Meanwhile, you can count on one hand the amount of times they’ve scored 2+ at Hillsborough (it’s three).

Looking at the top six tiers of English football, going down to the National League North/South, there’s just ONE club that has scored more away goals than the Owls (39), and that’s Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City (41). But only 10 in those six leagues have scored less at home. Madness.

Make mistakes, get punished

"Every time we got close, had them rocking and were primed to get back into the game we compounded that with schoolboy defending… It makes it even more frustrating.”

Those words rang true from Monk.

Despite having less possession, Wednesday actually made more key passes (11/9) and had more shots (14/12) than Fulham, but those ‘schoolboy’ errors cost them. The Lilywhites capitalised and the Owls didn’t. That makes a huge difference.

At least some fight...

It took a few subs, and maybe Fulham did take their foot off the gas, but one positive is certainly the fact that Wednesday didn’t completely capitulate like they maybe would have done earlier in the season. A 5-3 loss is a 5-3 loss, but I feared the worst at 3-0, and they managed to make a game of it, so fair play to them for that.

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