Baldy's Blog Episode 4 GET A GRIP!

People need to get a grip.

I feel like I have this rant every season but the reaction by some to the result against Preston has stirred it up so here I go again.

Sheffield Wednesday FC are not Barcelona.

Nor, for that matter, are we Bolton.
We aren’t even Blackpool at the moment.

It seems that, while some people on the messageboards have been quite positive about the performance against Preston and there are others that are critical, but in a reasonable or constructive way.

However, as usual, there are some fans that are bemoaning the fact that we are inconsistent...That we will struggle to challenge for the play-offs at this rate...That Darren Purse/Lewis Buxton/Akpo Sodje/fillinyourownblank are not good enough. Not good enough for what exactly? Not good enough for Sheffield Wednesday? What gave us a right to have perfect players?

Face facts – despite an increased playing budget this season we are still paying around £6 million a year in salaries. Compare this to the rest of the division and we should – by “right” – finish somewhere around the bottom 6.

I’m getting sick of hearing things like fans booing the team off after a defeat to a very good Middlesbrough side. I’m flabbergasted by the abuse that Lewis Buxton has received since, from what I’ve seen, 2 poor performances against very good wingers from Forest and Middlesbrough that have now turned him from Roland Nilsson into Ian Hendon in a matter of weeks. I’m sick of the bloke behind me in the North Stand who berates Tommy Spurr for every mistake but ignores his excellent progress in the past 3 years.

What do these people expect?
      

      
We’re a mid-table Championship side. That means we will be inconsistent. That means we’ll beat some teams and we’ll lose to others. That means we’ll finish around mid-table – hence the name “mid-table side”. That is above the bottom 6, which is where our resources are. That is below the play-offs, where most teams can realistically aim for (us included) but not be surprised if they don’t make it. It’s pretty basic stuff but for some reason it’s not good enough.

I’ve noticed something this season. Every week I look at the programme and compare the size of our squad with the opposition. Now when you go away sometimes this can be misleading because home teams can often include a lot of youth players, but when you’re at home it is pretty revealing. Even Coventry had something like 5 more players than us on Saturday. We have a first team squad of 23 (including loaned-in Varney but not loaned-out Lekaj) – that’s what international teams use for a 4 week tournament. And that includes O’Donnell and Boden.

It's all a blur We are improving, but it is slowly. It has to be slowly because, as Damon Albarn once said, there’s no other way. Not until an investor comes in. And those people that whinge and moan and squeal after a home defeat where we’ve played well but lost to a side with a much better financed squad than ours would do well to remember what happened when we chased the dream by spending beyond our means – in fact there’s even a possibility we are doing that already, seeing as the crowds are not really picking up.

There can’t be many Wednesday fans that don’t remember the 2004 team that struggled to stay in Division 3. That was a team to get you frustrated, to question the ability of and to genuinely make you feel that we were underachieving and that, as fans, we were being short changed. But this one is not. It has a manager who will make some mistakes and players who will do the same. Because they are mid-table Championship standard. Because that’s barely what we can afford.
      

      
But as long as they give it their all and continue to be at least inconsistent – consistency wasn’t a problem at the bottom end of Division 3, it was just consistently bad - then I won’t be complaining too much.Let's give the players a break and get behind them, and remember, in your darkest hour, when everything DOES go tits up for us, as it will inevitably do from time to time...There’s always Blackwell to cheer us up.

UTO.


Baldy.
Owls Alive