Look back in Anger: Where does the responsibility lie for Owls slump to the 3rd division?

Last updated : 14 May 2010 By C. Morris

Now that the dust has settled on the disastrous 2009/10 it is worth looking back at the key factors that contributed to Wednesday’s relegation to League One in the hope that any lasting problems can be eradicated ahead of the new season.

Some supporters have apportioned the blame firmly at the feet of Brian Laws and in some respects the facts tell a sorry tale.

Laws led the team to a respectable 12th place finish in 2008/09 and having kept the vast majority of the squad that had served him so well the previous season his final few months in charge were a major disappointment.

As results continued to go against the Owls and performances deteriorated Laws kept faith with players who simply weren’t performing and the confidence of the team looked to have disappeared. His final loan signings suggested an air of panic. Tom Soares was brought into the side despite clearly being short of match fitness when his first joined the club and the decision to sign striker Warren Feeney and then not play him at all even though the team were struggling badly in front of goal was baffling. If he was no better than what we already had then he should never have been signed in the first place and was a poor waste of a loan option.

Some of the final displays under his management seemed bereft of fight and endeavour, particularly away from Hillsborough and in the end his departure seemed to be almost inevitable with 18 points amassed from 21 matches.

When Alan Irvine took over the Owls sat in the relegation zone and had plenty to do to turn things around. However, with half the league season still to be played there was still a fair chance of survival.

A prolonged honeymoon period brought 5 wins from 7 and a renewed sense of hope and Irvine can point to an overall record of 28 points from 23 games which, averaged out over the course of a full season would have been enough to keep the club up.

However, when looking at these statistics and his time in charge in more detail there are a number of points to be made. 6 of the points that Wednesday picked up under Irvine came against a Blackpool side that were in the midst of their “bad patch” for the season and they even had players missing for off-field disciplinary reasons when they were defeated at Hillsborough.

Furthermore, having collected 15 points from his first 7 games in charge he only needed to guide the Owls to a point a game from the final 16 matches to achieve safety. Home defeats against mid-table Doncaster and struggling Ipswich were to prove costly and from then on Wednesday seemed to play with more caution and further dropped points at Hillsborough against Derby and Bristol left the Owls playing catch up. In contrast fellow relegation candidates Scunthorpe made the most of their home games, winning 4, drawing 2 and losing just 1 of their final 7 home games including a convincing 3-0 win over Bristol just two weeks after the Robins had won at Hillsborough.

What is also clear is that the players have underperformed under both managers during the course of the season. Any Wednesday fan would be hard pressed to pick more than a handful of the squad that had done themselves any real justice for the duration of the campaign. During 2008/09 although Tudgay and Grant were singled out for particular praise it was clear that the club had achieved measured success as a result of the efforts of the team as whole. The vast majority of the players that has done well during that season were still at the club and few if any would be able to say that they had maintained never mind improved on their form in 2009/10. The reason for this cannot be levelled solely on the shoulders of the manager(s) and the players have to take responsibility for this.

Finally it is worth assessing the role that the board has played. No one can deny that the current regime has made fantastic improvements in a wide range of areas since taking the helm at the club around 17 months ago. The facilities at Hillsborough are much better than was the case prior to their appointment and the relationships that have been developed with supporters, sections of the community and local businesses and schools have increased the level of understanding and respect for many involved with SWFC. However the most important element in terms of bringing a prolonged feel-good factor back to Hillsborough is success on the pitch.

Could it be argued that there was a case of the board fiddling while Rome burned? It cannot be denied that had Wednesday had a clinical goal scorer in the latter half of the season then they would surely have done enough to stay up. Alan Irvine said on numerous occasions that the Owls created enough chances to pick up more points but failed to take them and got punished at the other end of the pitch. The board stated the bank could not risk the club going over budget to gamble for safety on another loan transfer but with a bit of forward thinking could money not have been saved elsewhere to leave a little in the kitty for this eventuality going into the run in? Administrational expenses in the accounts increased significantly, into millions of pounds spent. Much of this has been attributed to the quest to seek investment but to date despite plenty of suggestions that investor income was imminent in the past year or so, ultimately nothing has come from this. Would it not have been possible to save just enough money to finance a loan signing in one were needed, after all this hardly required great hindsight given that a relegation battle looked on the cards from November onwards.

It appears that there were multiple factors to be attributed to relegation, Brian Laws paid the price with his job and it is vital that those still at the club take stock of what happened and learn from their experiences in order to put things right in 2010/11.