A dark place, angry faces and a telling jibe - Alex Miller's Sheffield Wednesday column
Sheffield Wednesday suffered a damaging 2-0 defeat at Notts County. Alex Miller was there.
A Notts County player wandered down through the tunnel at Meadow Lane and spoke to a couple of familiar faces going about their business closing the stadium up. Wandering away from their conversation, he turned over his shoulder and snarked with a grin “Yeah, not a bad little wander about, was it?” He winked. His pals chuckled.
It would be disingenuous to suggest this was a mind-blowing statement of disgrace from a Sheffield Wednesday perspective. Football is a testosterone-bathed sport of bravado and footballers can often revel in it, particularly away from on-record conversation. Comments such as that aren’t wholly uncommon.
But it certainly didn’t paint the fiercest picture of a Wednesday soundly beaten by a side who had previously won just one of their nine league outings. A 2-0 scoreline hardly flattered the home side, who ended a run of four straight league defeats to batter the Owls on every meaningful metric.
Meadow Lane is a dark place. Literally. Notts County’s club colours adorn the pitch perimeter, the signage and the stands and it’s all black. On a dreary and dank Tuesday evening the night drew in somehow faster. It felt dark and foreboding a long time before a ball had been kicked.
And so fitting it was, then, for everything that could possibly go wrong to go wrong. An Owls side unchanged from the 5-0 whalloping of the Wombles initially popped the ball about quite nicely but before long looked drained and leggy, injury to Di’Shon Bernard sparking tension. Through judgement or circumstance Wednesday have yet to find a settled side this season and you could see the thinking in keeping things as they were, but just a few days on from action you’d have to notice they were feeling the effects.
After Bernard’s solemn hobble, the young lad gave away a penalty and from a place of concern it all dissolved into bin juice; Slattery yellow’d to confirm his long-inevitable suspension, Lowe exiled for a lunge bursting with frustration. Those three join a list of 17 players unavailable to Wednesday this weekend, with further management of minutes to consider.
All the very logical arguments to suggest this start to the Owls season is a fair one remain valid; unbeaten for a period that saw t-shirt weather turn to that of winter coats, their battle against the scourge of injury, the voyage of newness that had senior figures advising patience early doors. The fact is that Wednesday remain but a stone’s throw from the top of the division and have at least a game in hand on those above. Performance levels have been masked by results but there is an argument to suggest this squad isn’t one that demands a title charge and that in terms of points, they’re ticking along better than expected.
But there was undeniably something different about the Notts County defeat. It was so tired, so lacklustre, so laboured and sparked strains of dissent from the away end towards Henrik Pedersen that we hadn’t heard before. A paltry xG of 0.28 seemed generous on the eye test and a higher quality opposition was not a string to pull on. Wednesday expects.
Nearly 40 minutes had passed by the time Pedersen came out to speak with the media at Meadow Lane. Away from home, particularly after a midweek fixture, it would usually be 10 or 15 and there had clearly been stern words had behind the scenes. Other Wednesday figures wandered back out into the Nottingham air with a sense of pensiveness to them. There was emotion in the eyes of some, even anger, as figures sat silently in the dugout or did their post-match fitness exercises with sullen eyes. The gravity of the evening had not passed them by.
This truly is a season of contradictions and the blessing is that such is the quick turnaround to the trip to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday, the mood can once again shift - though the feeling is that County is one that won’t be forgotten in a rush.
That cocky Magpie had a point.