Sheffield Wednesday have this morning announced that they have parted company with manager Brian Laws.
A 3-0 defeat at Leicester City saw the Owls fall into the bottom three in the Coca-Cola Championship, extended their winless streak to 9 games in the process.
After a steady start to the season Wednesday have lost their way in the last couple of months and the performances in some matches have been as poor as the results themselves. Wednesday have not scored a goal for almost six games and they have one of the worst defensive records in the division.
Brian Laws took the helm at Hillsborough in November 2006 following the departure of Paul Sturrock and guided the team away from the relegation zone, finishing in a creditable 9th position thanks to excellent end-of-season form that gave the club an outside shot at making the play-offs.
The 2007/08 season started in appalling fashion with 6 successive league defeats. The team failed to fully recover from this and flirted with relegation for most of the season, finally securing their Championship place thanks to back-to-back wins at the end of the campaign.
A steady 2008/09 campaign saw the Owls finish in 12th place thanks to a fine home record, a couple of summer additions paired with the fact that the majority of the playing squad was maintained gave the fans hope that the club could build on this in 2009/10. The team started the season well, playing some neat football but this was undermined by a number of defensive mistakes and due to this the results did not match the performances.
More recently it has been concerning that the performances have dipped significantly and the team appeared to have lost some fight and lack determination.
Brian Laws has paid the price for this prolonged and unacceptable dip in form and has left the club by mutual consent with the Owls releasing a statement thanking him for his efforts and achievements during his reign.
SWFC academy manager Sean McAuley has been appointed to lead the first team in a caretaker role until a new long-term manager is appointed. McAuley has done this job previously to good effect when he steadied the ship following Paul Sturrock’s departure before the appointment of Laws.