This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Sheffield Wednesday dropped out of the playoffs following their defeat to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday afternoon.
Garry Monk suffered just his second loss of his Owls tenure as the home side fought from behind to clinch all three points.
The south Yorkshire side surely thought they had won it seven minutes from time when substitute Jacob Murphy planted a header past the goalkeeper, but Tony Mowbray’s men bagged two goals in the final three minutes.
Wednesday were surprisingly without Barry Bannan so Kieran Lee was handed an opportunity to start in midfield while Julian Borner returned to the defence to partner Dominic Iorfa.
But it wasn’t an enforced decision that put the visitors at a disadvantage before a ball was even kicked, it was Monk himself who failed to set his team up in the correct manner for this test.
On the Chalkboard
Rovers had been in a torrid vein of form going into this match as they endured a run of six games without a victory, four of those being defeats.
In that same spell, they also conceded 13 goals, which is some going considering they have only let in 19 all season, per WhoScored.
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This apparent sign of defensive frailty should have given Monk a perfect chance to revert back to a system which utilises two upfront, but instead, he went for Steven Fletcher on his own.
And their top goalscorer struggled to make much of an impact as he was so isolated in attack.
The 32-year-old won seven aerial duels, more than any other Wednesday player, but this rarely contributed to a genuine chance with very little support around him.
So far this season, results like the one against Middlesborough have shown that a 4-4-2 system can pay dividends, especially when coming up against a side with an evident weakness.
The Owls netted four first-half goals in the space of just 30 minutes in that game, yet on Saturday, they could only muster up five shots on target from a total of 18.
Providing Fletcher with a partner couldn’t have been any more obvious, and Monk’s baffling omission of that has ultimately cost them regardless of how close they nearly came to clinching something.
