Sheff Wed came into the season on a wave of optimism and hype, bolstered by smashing Plymouth on day one, but they’ve lost three straight without scoring since as Danny Rohl attempts to implement his preferred style. Has his crown slipped? We asked Jon Hore…
How was last season?
I know you had us dead last in your predictions last season and that was, to be fair to you, a completely fair assessment. We were a bit of a shambles. We’d obviously had the whole Darren Moore saga, we didn’t start our recruitment until late, and when we did start it wasn’t the greatest. We got off to an awful start and thankfully Chansiri made the decision to pull the plug on Xisco fairly quickly. That started the Danny Rohl chapter and things have turned around incredibly since then – albeit with some ups and downs along the way and some absolutely horrific games still thrown in there.
Rohl talks about his ‘non-negotiable principles’ being high intensity and high press. To a certain extent, we did play like that. He also came in with an idea of playing 4-2-3-1 which is his preferred set up, but quickly realised that was just leaving us far too open with us pressing high. We actually only won one of his first seven games I think, though you could see the improvement there. Towards the end of the season he’d gone to a back five as the only way to keep us solid – we got destroyed in a couple of games at Huddersfield and Ipswich which were low points. It was a bit of a tactical masterclass across the board really, he was really pragmatic and got it right – similar to what you’ve experienced so far with Cifuentes.
Sheff Wed in the league so far…
Sheff Wed 4-0 Plymouth Lowe 35, Galloway og 52, Windass 82, Smith 90
Sunderland 4-0 Sheff Wed Cirkin 11, Mayenda 15, 47, O’Nien 24
Sheff Wed 0-2 Leeds Aaronson 24, James 48
Millwall 3-0 Sheff Wed Coburn 58, Watmore 71, Cooper 88
Very weird start to your season, tell us about it?
Yeah, it’s been really weird so far. After a promising pre-season we looked like prime Barca in the first game against Plymouth. Rohl-ball in full swing, 30 shots, 4.85 xG, playing with a real intensity and swagger and it was a joy to watch. Since then: nine goals conceded, zero scored, and we’ve looked less prime Barca, more Dog & Duck after a heavy Saturday night. There was some mitigation for the defeats to Sunderland and Leeds - Sunderland was one of those days where everything that could go wrong in the first half did, and before you know it’s game over. Leeds were just very good on the day, that can happen. No excuses for getting bummed by Millwawll though. Our attacking threat has completely dried up and we’ve barely created a chance in the last three games. Look really vulnerable at set pieces as well.
Has Rohl's crown slipped at all? Seen the usual OTT criticism on the Twitter etc...
This is the first time he’s had to face any real criticism at all since he’s been here. I think it’s fair to say the honeymoon is over but he’s still the King for me and is clearly by far the club’s best asset. We’d definitely be playing Crawley and Cambridge this year if it wasn’t for him, which doesn’t make him immune from criticism, but I think the more realistic and level-headed section of the fanbase know that it’s going to take time to get it right. It looks like we’re going to have to evolve a bit more slowly than he would have liked, but I’ve got absolutely no doubt that he is the man for the job, and that with patience he will get it right.
Looks to me like he did whatever it needed to stay up last year, I remember the four up front against us at Hillsborough, but now he's trying to play how he actually wants to play and there are... teething issues? Do we think he'll reverse it slightly and go pragmatic? Or is it up to the team to get used to this?
I think up to this point he’s almost been testing the players to see what they’re capable of and how far he can push his preferred 4-2-3-1 shape and style. Clearly there are teething problems and I think he’ll have realised by now that the evolution to that way of playing is not going to happen as quickly as he’d like. I’m not expecting drastic changes because he’s been clear he won’t stray from his core principles of high intensity football with aggressive counter-pressing, but the break has given him a solid two weeks to work on things in training, and given the results and performances over the last three games I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t make some tweaks and go a little bit more pragmatic against you.
The balance just hasn’t been right so far, and we’ve looked overrun in midfield but he showed last year he was able to make adjustments and wasn’t wedded to a particular shape or way of playing. I get the impression he really wants to stick with a back four rather than move to a five, so for me the natural progression would be to move to more of a 4-3-3 to get an extra body in the midfield whilst keeping the threat out wide to stretch teams with our pace. I think with Shea Charles at the base of that three with Bannan and a box-to-box runner in front could work well.
How did your transfer window activity end up? Who's impressed of the newcomers? Who hasn't?
The window itself went well - we got a lot of business done early, and a lot of it permanent. We landed our main striker target in Uke Ugbo, brought back some of last season’s top performers (James Beadle and Di’Shon Bernard) and went into deadline day looking for players who would improve us rather than scratching around for desperation loans like last year (hello Jeff Hendrick). We beat off competition to pick up Shea Charles on loan from Southampton to add some much needed quality in midfield and I think he’s going to be a pivotal player for us this year. He was the best of a bad bunch on his debut against Millwall.
In terms of who’s impressed, this is going to be a boring answer but it’s really difficult to judge any of them yet. Everyone looked incredible against Plymouth but has looked pretty average since. We need to settle down into a consistent system and give it a few more games before we’ll really find out how good/bad the new lot are.
Ins >>> Ike Ugbo, 25, CF, Troyes, £2.7m >>> Olaf Kobacki, 22, LW, Arka Gdynia (Poland), £500k >>> Yan Valery, 24, RB, Angers, £350k >>> Max Lowe, 27, LB, Sheff Utd, Free >>> Jamal Lowe, 29, CF, Bournemouth, Free >>> Nathaniel Chalobah, 29, CM, West Brom, Free >>> Svante Ingelsson, 26, AM, Hansa Rostock, Free >>> Ben Hamer, 36, GK, Watford, Free >>> Charlie McNeill, 20, CF, Man Utd, Free >>> James Beadle, 19, GK, Brighton, Loan >>> Shea Charles, 20, DM, Southampton, Loan
Outs >>> Bambo Diaby, 26, CB, Elche, £300k >>> Will Vaulks, 30, DM, Oxford, Free >>> Juan Delgado, 31, RW, CD Everton (Chile), Free >>> Cameron Dawson, 28, GK, Rotherham, Free >>> Tyreeq Bakinson, 25, CM, Wycombe, Free >>> George Byers, 28, CM, Port Vale, Free >>> Reece James, 30, LB, Rotherham, Free >>> Lee Gregory, 35, CF, Mansfield, Free >>> Ciaran Brennan, 24, CB, Newport, Free >>> Bailey Cadamarteri, 19, CF, Lincoln, Loan >>> Mallik Wilks, 25, RW, Rotherham, Loan
Revised expectations for the season?
I think I said tenth in your pre-season predictions and I don't see any reason to sway from that original prediction just yet. It’s still very early and I trust Rohl to fund the right formula with this group of players. The last four seasons have been nail biting to the last game at both ends of the table so it would be quite nice to just have a boring mid-table season.
Links >>> Sheff Wed Official Website >>> Sheffield Star — Local Paper >>> London Owls — Blog >>> Owls Talk — Message Board
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