"There’s a fragility there.." Garry Monk on his old Sheffield Wednesday side as survival hopes dwindle at QPR

And Garry Monk gave an honest assessment of the mentality of the changing room at Hillsborough after their 4-1 defeat at QPR.

The defeat leaves Wednesday’s relegation hopes looking fanciful with six matches left to play and speaking as a pundit on Sky Sports’ coverage of the match, Monk commented on the scale of comedown from the highs of their 5-0 win at Cardiff on Monday evening.

“There’s no getting away from it, it’s a very difficult situation,” he said. “That’s a big blow today, after the last game where they were so good.

“There’s no other way around it. There’s a fragility there in terms of the mentality to come through diversity.

“It’s a big cross to bear, but it’s one to have that toughness with it and that toughness hasn’t been there. There’s been a lot of changes, not a lot of consistency in messages and that sort of thing, but that’s what it is and you have to get on with that.”

Monk suggested a sympathy with the players over the nature of the season, given a points deduction and the carousel of managers that have graced the Owls dugout this season.

But he said the adversity the squad have been faced with has not been met.

It harks back to suggestions he made the squad was not mentally strong enough when he was Owls boss well over a year ago.

“We’ve all been there as a player and you have to get on with that side of that,” he said. “The consistency hasn’t been there.

“It’s such a huge and well-supported club and we can all sit here and say they don’t deserve to be there from a fan base point of view, but they are where they are for those reasons.

“You can’t give up hope and you never know in this league, but it’s an extremely difficult ask from this point.”

The defeat keeps Wednesday second-bottom of the Championship and seven points shy of safety.

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