Sheffield Wednesday staff ‘muck in’ as manager change leads to reshuffle

‘Thommo’, who has been at the club since 2011 when he joined the Owls as part of Gary Megson’s team, and over the years he’s held a few different positions whilst becoming part of the furniture at Middlewood Road.

This season the U21s boss has seen his side start incredibly brightly, but last week – just a couple of days after his 60^th birthday – he was asked to step away and take over for Xisco after he was relieved of his duties as manager. His first game would be against former colleague, Darren Moore, and his Huddersfield Town side.

"It’s just Wednesday,” Thompson said with a smile when asked how much notice he got before taking the reins. “So you have to deal with it and move on. The chairman asked me to do the game, I’ve done the game. Let’s move forward and see what happens…

“When you get this crowd behind you’ve got to go with and make sure they stay with you. It might be a header, a cross, shot, block whatever. The crowd get after you and you have to go with it and you have to make the opposition feel inferior."

His move up to the senior ranks has seen a hole left in his normal job in the youth setup, but he spoke highly of academy manager, Steve Haslam, and U18s boss, Andy Holdsworth, who not only sat alongside him on Saturday but also took his U21s as they prepare for a mini Steel City derby this week.

"Andy and Steve are with us,” he explained. “But trained the 21s this morning. We’ve got a game next week. And there’s Andy Sharp and Jordan Broadbent from lower down, we’ve got really good academy staff here who are more than capable of stepping into the breach. They’ll do that and we’ll muck in together."

Wednesday drew the game 0-0, Thompson’s first draw in 13 games as caretaker boss if you include his spell during the 2020/21 season. Xisco’s permanent replacement is expected to be in place by the time the international break comes to an end.