Old themes rear their head as Sheffield Wednesday are humbled by West Brom

Second-placed West Brom took to the canvas with a bloody nose having not won in four but walked away with what was in the end a deserved 3-0 victory against a hard-working Owls performance that in fits and starts had promised so much.

Some of the themes that have haunted the side in days gone by reared their head – a lack of incisiveness, a fragility at the back and the ability to kick themselves in the head while gaining momentum – and while the encouraging superlatives can be reached for once again given their proximity to the title-chaser’s performance for portions of the game, it’s one they leave with nothing.

The frailties of the squad Monk finds himself with were laid bare with only one recognised centre-half in the starting line-up. Fears over Julian Börner’s fitness following the dead leg he suffered at Bristol City came to haunt Hillsborough and skipper Tom Lees missed out with a knock he picked up in training.

Four largely untried academy players rode the bench.

It would have been easy to go running and shuffle the side back to a 4-4-2, but the previous two matches have delivered an identity to Sheffield Wednesday that they so sorely missed before. If there was some panicked haze in the injury-enforced chop-and-change nature of the side between Boxing Day and the coronavirus apocalypse, there’s a clarity to how Monk sees the future of his side forming. And clarity, he says, is paramount.

And while it’s a clarity enforced at the expense of players stationed in positions they are most accustomed to, you could well argue that it offers little defence to Moses Odubajo, parachuted onto the left of a back three and playing with the eyes of a fanbase on his back after a less than encouraging start to life in South Yorkshire.

His gift of a penalty, awarded by the linesman after a foul on Dara O’Shea after 38 minutes, was a result of him getting on the wrong side of his attacker, the scramble to regain ground resulting in an ugly tangle of legs. It was a foul uncomfortably similar to those he gave away at Preston and Derby earlier in the year and it’s the fourth he’s given away in a Wednesday shirt. Charlie Austin scored from the spot as he did at the Hawthorns back in November.

The frustration? Odubajo otherwise did so well up to that point in a foreign position.

In Matheus Pereira West Brom may well have the best player in the division, a playmaker surely set to grace one of more grandeur European leagues whether the Baggies ultimately get over the line or not. He scored two, but for much of the clash Odubajo measured up, stopping him dead on several occasions as the Brazilian’s talents were kept at arm’s length.

Speaking to The Star in the hours after day one back at training last month, the former Brentford man spoke of his keenness to put those moments behind him and start afresh. In his first start back, despite all the circumstances guarding against him, it’s not a match highlight that will not endear him any further with the more unforgiving quarters of the fanbase.

It’s cruel, but it’s those moments that cost sides so dearly in a division such as the Championship and ultimately turn matches on their heads.

The returning Adam Reach, making only his second start of the year and this time in the middle of midfield, failed to pick up the red-hot baton of Kieran Lee and West Brom’s quality ultimate showed in those areas. They were cuter and grew into it as the game went on.

We know the liberating effect those extra legs have had on the fit-again Barry Bannan and while in the previous two matches but the little Scot was able to breeze around in the spaces he has taken advantage of so readily in the more purple of patches in his career, he was pushed deeper this time out.

Whether or not that was tactical or a result of West Brom’s altogether more controlling midfield is one for the club to ponder.

Much had been made of the Baggies’ post-lockdown slumber, failing to score in either of their matches back. In fact the statistic goes further back in that they had also failed to score in two matches prior to the break, a puzzling reality given the attacking talent at their disposal.

But a goal up and chests out, that Pereira second was an example of the sort of cutting edge that makes the difference between teams marooned in midtable and those vying for the big league. He added a classy third late on.

Wednesday tried to burrow themselves back into the game but were largely limited to shots from outside the area as the Baggies defence grew in stature and nous, time and again breaking up home side momentum with tactical fouls and slow-up tactics. It was, in many ways, the perfect away performance – if away performances are a thing nowadays.

Squad management will be the theme for every Championship club in what we have left of the season but perhaps few more than Monk’s men, who look a little light. The Wednesday roadshow, bruised but far from bleeding, rolls onto Swansea on Sunday.

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