Sheffield Wednesday looked very much unlike a usual Danny Rohl side in their draw vs Norwich City. But there’s reason to believe that what we saw might well keep the Owls in the Championship.
Norwich City boss David Wagner, like many opposition managers have done this season, spoke highly of Rohl before his side faced Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough on Tuesday night.
He labelled Sheffield Wednesday a ‘mid-table team’ and stated that they play like one too. And many form tables will prove that Wednesday, under Rohl, certainly aren’t the relegation candidates that reality says they are.
We’ve seen the Owls play some formidable football under Rohl and it’s enabled them to amass more than 40 points in each other’s company, following a winless start to the season under his unfavourable predecessor Xisco Munoz.
Munoz ranks as Sheffield Wednesday’s worst-ever manager with 0 wins from 12 games at the helm. He’s closely followed by Tony Pulis who took just one win from his 10 games in charge towards the end of 2020. Though after Sheffield Wednesday came from behind the draw with Norwich City 2-2, Rohl was likened to Pulis, but not in an entirely bad way.
David Wagner labels Danny Rohl the ‘German Tony Pulis’
Rohl has more wins than both Munoz and Pulis combined. In fact, Rohl has had as many managerial jobs as Pulis and Munoz had combined wins in charge of Sheffield Wednesday; one.
He’s become the most beloved Sheffield Wednesday manager since Carlos Carvalhal and the one shining light on an otherwise calamitous season off the pitch, fronted by the ever-controversial yet elusive Dejphon Chansiri.
Rohl’s football has garnered fans not only in S6 but in the wider footballing community too, with Sheffield Wednesday’s Championship rivals Sunderland now fancying Rohl as a potential summer appointment.
The Football League’s youngest manager plied his trade in the Red Bull system. There, he learned the ways of the gegenpress, quickly implementing his knowledge onto a previously squandering bunch of Sheffield Wednesday players and reaping the rewards.
Though in recent weeks, it feels as though opposition teams have begun to figure out the Owls’ set up; that, combined with fatigue as Rohl is forced to work with this same relatively small group of players, has led to dips and troughs in form.
The 6-0 defeat at Ipswich Town then showcased a naivety from Rohl which had served him well up until that point.
Another calamitous, but flattering 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough followed, then the 2-0 win vs QPR, followed by an Ipswich-style, first half faltering under the Hillsborough lights against Norwich City.
The Canaries should’ve been well ahead long before Sheffield Wednesday got back into it through Michael Ihiekwe in the 78th minute.
But four half-time changes and a quite dramatic change in tempo and tactics allowed Sheffield Wednesday to take a share of the points, and prompted Wagner to give us one of the more memorable Sheffield Wednesday quotes of the season so far:
“I just had a joke with their manager and I said he’s the German Tony Pulis with how he played,” Wagner joked.
Danny Rohl discovery his Sheffield Wednesday Plan B
For Sheffield Wednesday, there’s been not much of a Plan B under Rohl, other than changing shape from a back-four to a back-five.
And that’s not a slight on Rohl; he has limited resources and he’s had just one January transfer window to make his own impact on the side, having also been without half of his January signings in Kristian Pedersen and Ian Poveda for periods.
Sheffield Wednesday have had successes in both the back-five and back-four but all the while, the message from Rohl, it seems, was clear enough; press high, work the ball out from the back, and be clinical when chances fall their way.
When those three things work without calamity, it’s a joy to watch. But the working the ball out from the back, this is the tough part for Sheffield Wednesday and often times for James Beadle.
The young goalkeeper on loan from Brighton endured a nightmarish first-half vs Norwich. He gave the ball away for the Canaries’ second goal and could’ve quickly let his head drop, though he kept his nerve and went on to pull off some top saves throughout the game.
And Rohl did him a favour at half-time. He changed the shape to a back-five and told his players to not only press high, but to play much higher up the pitch, not allowing Norwich to rush towards Beadle and force mistakes from the defence.
Playing in Norwich’s half for much of the second half, Sheffield Wednesday looked like the promotion chasers, and Norwich like the relegation candidates.
Not only that, but the whole mentality shift was completed by a focus on, simply but effectively we might add, pumping the ball into the Norwich penalty area.
Bringing Will Vaulks on at half-time was a masterclass from Rohl, one of several at the break, with Vaulks’ pinpoint crosses, corners, and long-throws giving Norwich no respite, much like a prime Pulis outfit would’ve done well back in the days of Rory Delap.
Now with four games to go, it seems unlikely that Rohl will forget everything he’s learned to date and go pure Pulis-ball. But that second half performance vs Norwich City has now given Rohl and Sheffield Wednesday a Plan B, for when Plan A finds them leaking goals.
Against Pulis’ former employers Stoke City at Hillsborough this weekend, expect Rohl to want to play the Sheffield Wednesday way, but expect doses of Pulis, and a somewhat new-look, rugged Sheffield Wednesday.
Desperate times always call for desperate measures.
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