Gary Megson has taken the first steps to redemption for a crime he didn’t commit. The downfall of Sheffield Wednesday over the last fifteen year’s was not his fault but he is the one who is charged with the task of getting a once great club back to dizzying heights.
The first game of the season has come and gone. The anticlimax came about four hours after the final whistle. It gets tedious when fans of eight different clubs are giving jibes to each the others because they are top of the league. By the way, Sheffield Wednesday are currently joint top but still above Sheffield United on alphabetical differences.
Wednesday new boys Rob Jones and David Prutton scored a goal each to complete a 2-0 victory over Rochdale, a repeat of last year’s fixture at Hillsborough. Rob Jones got the opener from a set piece whilst “Jesus scored a wonder goal” was the general turn of phrase on twitter for a good while after Prutton scored the second.
After reading reports from the match afterwards, one thing has stuck in my mind, people are saying that we had done our research on the opposition and shut off all their effect channels of attack. It seems that good scouting combined with clever new acquisitions won the day.
For all those who may not like Gary Megson and his style of play, you cannot fault the fact that not only did we close down Rochdale who have a reputation for playing some quite good football at times. We got goals from defence and midfielders and the striker who was substituted, Clinton Morrison, still came off to rapturous applause. This shows an all round good performance from the owls.
Gary Megson said of the victory, "It was a very good day because we scored our first goal, got our first point, first clean sheet and first win.
"That's a full house and great to get on the first day. I thought we were very good. We said to the players what we wanted out of the first game and got the lot.
Megson added: "It was something that Howard Wilkinson instilled into us when I was a player and we were fortunate enough to get all those things."
Under Alan Irvine there were too often players who did not seem to know what they were doing and heads went down if a goal was conceded. Although the next few games will accurately assess any real change in squad mentality, a telling point was the whole team celebrating together when the Owls scored.
If Wednesday win 2-0 in every home game for the rest of the season, the fans would be delighted but even more so, if the players and management team put in that level of planning and commitment, then the Owls won’t be far from the top come the end of the season.
On days like Saturday you can see hope, a tough opening game against a team who can easily capitalise on your mistakes and make you pay. The result was positive, the performance was positive and everyone went in the same direction. You lose together and win together, that is what Saturday felt like. Despite Megson's full house this time around, no one knows what his next hand is. More of the same is the hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment