At numerous times during the 2008/09 season Sheffield Wednesday fans would come away from games, particularly away from Hillsborough, bemoaning the fact that the team appeared to lack the requisite determination and bite to give the opposition a thorough challenge and there are statistics that would seem to support this notion.
Official figures as sourced on the football league’s official website, http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/ClubDiscipline/0,,10794~20097,00.html that Sheffield Wednesday was the only club in the division not to receive a red card in league matches. In fact, every other team in the Championship picked up at least two dismissals over the course of the season.
Furthermore only two teams received less than the 57 yellow cards that were handed out to Sheffield Wednesday players with one of those being a fellow relegated outfit, Peterborough United.
Purists and advocates of fair play might suggest that this is a good thing but in terms of success the figures suggest otherwise, as is emphasised by the fact that Championship runners-up West Bromwich Albion picked up more bookings than any other team and third-placed Nottingham Forest were the third highest in terms of cautions.
Interestingly, despite picking up no red cards and comparably few yellow cards, the Owls committed more fouls during the season than all of the other teams in the Championship apart from Sheffield United, who were a class apart in this department with over thirty fouls more than Wednesday.
This could infer that Wednesday committed too many needless, niggley fouls which caused them to easily surrender possession. The fact that they committed so many fouls but picked up so few cautions also implies that they perhaps didn’t put the boot in where it would have been wise to do so in order to break up the play of the opposition. It may seem cynical but commentators and pundits will often say ‘that was a good foul to make’ or ‘the player and his team will be content to take a booking in that situation’ as in committing an offence they have at least stopped open play that was likely to develop into a goal scoring situation.