Sheffield Wednesday’s slim win over Coventry City in their last Championship outing was enough to lift the Owls from the bottom of the Sky Bet Championship table. It was also Tony Pulis’ maiden win since taking the reins at Hillsborough.
The Owls were relegated to automatic bottom of the division thanks to the -12 penalty start they incurred due to failing the EFL’s FFP protocols.
That penalty was halved and, coupled with picking up points, Wednesday began to move things in the right direction.
Falling fortunes and fumbling results – Monk out, Pulis in
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing and Sheffield Wednesday wasn’t a very tight ship. Results continued to stumble along and something had to give. That something was Garry Monk who was sacked by the powers-that-be at Hillsborough.
With Monk out, the task of bringing the Owls out of the aftermath fell to former Stoke City and Middlesbrough boss Tony Pulis. His brief is very simple: preserve our Championship status. The resulting foorball might not be very pretty but it is functional.
Pulis has largely stopped the rot and results aren’t lurching as much as they were. The Owls are his team now and he will have a January window to mould the Hillsborough outfit in his own image.
Before transfers, just one thing says reporter
There will not be much money freed up for Pulis, that seems to be what many are thinking. That shouldn’t worry him, he’s a shrewd operator.
However, in response to a question from a fan, Sun reporter Alan Nixon warns that there may be one issue that needs clearing up ahead of any dabbling in the transfer market throughout January:
Need to sort out wage thing first … https://t.co/vrKb8nMuUD
— Alan Nixon (@reluctantnicko) December 24, 2020
What Nixon is alluding to here is the capping of players’ wages at £7,000 by the club due to the cashflow issues of Thai owner Dejphon Chansiri. In effect, the players were not paid the full entitlement of their wages for November. It has gotten to the point where the PFA have been contacted by Wednesday’s squad in order to mediate.
For Nixon, that is the big obstacle that must be overcome before the club can begin to even think about movement in January’s transfer market.
