"In their eyes I was the worst player to ever grace the football pitch" - Moses Odubajo on trying to turn things around at Sheffield Wednesday

The 27-year-old is four games away from hitting the 50-game mark with the Owls after being brought in by Steve Bruce in 2019, but has had a tough time of it as he battled injury, a drop in form and a number of managerial changes.

Now though, with an extended run and a change of mindset, the former Brentford man seems to be finding his feet, despite the challenges he’s faced.

Speaking to the On The Judy podcast, ‘Mo’ spoke a bit about the journey he’s been on, saying, “We had an interim, Lee Bullen come in, but my body started to break down… I don’t know how to explain it, I just started to feel like the walls were falling in. On top of that, mentally everything just started spiralling out of control in terms of questioning again. I started making stupid decisions on the pitch - I was just like ‘what’s going on?’

“I was giving pens away. I’d never given a pen in my life, then I gave four or five away in a seasons. I gave two pens away in one game. Then the new manager comes in, and he’s basically pulled me and said ‘Look, you’re not in my plans, you’re fourth or fifth choice’. He got me questioning myself even more.

“I was fourth choice, I’d given away four pens, and I couldn’t catch a break. My body was just spiralling and it couldn’t take it.

“Saturday’s for me were just Soccer Saturday and green tea... Then one day I saw something on Instagram about how much we sleep in total throughout our lifetime. The figure was mad, we sleep for mad years.

“It was just something weird like that made me think ‘I need to fix that’. I said I needed to seek help from a physio point of view, from a different side, a different opinion. The ones I’d seen had all had the same opinion – I needed a different one.

“Then I started investing in my body, going down certain avenues, investing in my mind, and before I knew it the pieces of the puzzle started to slowly come together. Not at the speed I wanted, but I’m starting to feel better, more agile.

“I started getting a run in the team, and then lockdown happened.”

He’s been one player who has been criticised by fans and has also come out to meet that criticism head on, but he admits that at one point he had to take a step back.

He said, “I was, in their eyes, the worst player to ever grace the football pitch. To give away two pens in a game, I think that was probably the lowest point in my career to date. I didn’t even want to look at social media - that day I just hit ‘Do Not Disturb’, found those two apps, held them down and deleted them.”

With Wednesday finding some form with Odubajo in the side, he’ll now be hoping that he can prove his worth on the pitch to those that have doubted his ability and commitment.

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