Sheffield Wednesday endured their heaviest defeat under Danny Rohl on Saturday.
Sheffield Wednesday were dealt an untimely 6-0 defeat away at Ipswich Town in the Championship on Saturday.
The defeat came just a week after the Owls went toe to tie with Leeds United at Hillsborough, largely dominating the first half but eventually coming undone in a 2-0 defeat.
And again on Saturday, Wednesday started the better of the two teams; attacking the Tractor Boys and trying to beat them at their own game, before Ipswich scored against the run of play and went on to score five more.
It’s a heavy defeat for Rohl and his team and arguably a low point for the German during his early management days too.
Here we look at three mistakes Rohl has made at Sheffield Wednesday so far…
Ipswich Town horror show
Sheffield Wednesday changed shape for the game at Portman Road, changing from a back-five to a back-four, with the Owls looking as though they had four players up front early on in the game.
It made for an end-to-end start to the game but Ipswich were the ones who took all their chances.
They found it far too easy to take the ball of Wednesday in their own half, break with pace, and score.
After the game, Rohl said he wanted his side to be on the front foot at Ipswich, no doubt in a bid to counteract Ipswich’s attacking prowess with some prowess of their own.
But it was a very naive decision from Rohl, looking back, especially with Wednesday having looked very good in a back-five in recent weeks.
No new midfielder in January
Rohl oversaw the January transfer window with head of recruitment Kevin Beadell and owner Dejphon Chansiri.
Speaking ahead of the window, Rohl said on multiple times that he wanted to address the balance of the squad, with the Sheffield Wednesday first-team previously being very heavy in midfield.
But after offloading John Buckley, Tyreeq Bakinson, and George Byers, and not bringing in a new central midfielder (Ian Poveda is more attacking and has been used as a winger by Rohl), Wednesday are all of a sudden lacking in midfield.
It comes after injuries to Barry Bannan and Poveda with Will Vaulks and the unimpressive Momo Diaby now Rohl’s main two central midfielders, with Jeff Hendrick not in contention right now.
If Bannan’s injury is a serious one then it could mean a potential midfield crisis for Rohl, who was arguably to quick to offload players in January.
Tinkering with Sheffield Wednesday defence
This Rohl mistake probably goes back a bit further than the present moment, and arguably doesn’t apply to the here and now, but before Christmas there was a lot of playing about with the defensive line up.
Rohl was often changing centre-back pairings and for no apparent reason, then experimenting with the back-five and to no avail at first.
But during the run of four-straight wins earlier this year, Rohl settled on a formation and settled on a back-five, and seemed to reap the rewards.
Marvin Johnson on the left and Pol Valentin on the right, with Di’Shon Bernard, Michael Ihiekwe and Liam Palmer in the middle seems to be Rohl’s best defensive line up by far; Johnson was largely exposed playing as a left-back vs Ipswich as opposed to his usual left wing-back.
A lack of depth will mean Rohl has to change for some games, as we saw against Leeds, but when everyone is fit, Rohl must do his best to settle on a line up.
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