Sheffield Wednesday - Anti football at its most disgraceful

[RaySmith]

Well done for battling back for a point today when it looked a lost cause.

Wednesday obviously came to do a job on us and nearly succeeded. It's a tough, competitive division, and I'm not surprised they were difficult opposition.

[bill taylors apprentice]

anti football ? They outplayed us, out fought us from the first minute. We were awful. They did nibble at our players a lot and there was a lot of pretending to be injured, but they better everywhere and their tactics were spot on. They should have killed us off in the first half.

The ref did get suckered in a bit, but I am surprised at this post. The only thing I came away thinking about was how second best we were and how lucky we are.

Amazing how different people see things differently !

Yes, they were the better team for periods during the match and we struggled to get going but their negative approach to the game, and I'm not talking about getting players behind the ball and closing our players down (that's genuine tactics and team work)was anti football at its best.

Their tactics clearly weren't spot on or they would have killed us off and there's a big difference between "being out fought" and "nibbling at our players" and what I saw today.

[Skatzoffc]

Good replies on here. All good points.

They definitely came with a plan and executed it well. We were totally shut out of the game in the 1st 20 mins. They scored a very good goal. But once they got the goal they  switched to disgraceful tactics. Why didn't they go on and win the game. They could have scored more imo.

Maybe their coach knew if they played attacking style they'd get thumped as it would allow us to play our game. I'm pleased their anti football tactics  ultimately failed.

As I said in the op, a point salvaged.
Onwards and upwards.
COYW!

[ron]

Their fitness seemed to be tip top, because we were throughout denied time to settle on the ball. We seemed to be resorting to marching down the middle again, and again becoming over elaborate in short passing in the "d", rather than getting down the wings. In fairness, our passing was poor, under constant pressure, and I was eventually pleased with the late goal and point, rather than bemoaning the missed opportunity for a win.  It was decidedly chilly in the JH as well making for a rather frustrating afternoon, apart from as I say, the goal and point.

[Max Headroom]

I didn't think we were that bad. They were a good team, but dirty and wasted time embarrassingly. The ref didn't help. Nor the linesman as they were offside for the first goal by a mile.

We weren't amazing. When piazon went off, we had more pace, but ayite doesn't do the defending Andy pressing that piazon does. Was a shame as johansen and Martin were pressing but ayite wasn't which always left them an outlet.

Great to have Parker off the bench. He gave the game an oomph.

We didn't deserve to win, and I think a draw was a fair result, but we shouldn't be down as Wednesday are a decent team.

[BedsFFC]

Sitting in the Hammersmith End, actually quite low down near the front, which really means you have very little perspective of what is going on at the other end. Weirdly, I quite enjoyed the game insofar as I took the opportunity to look closely at individual players.
One thing that came home in the 2nd half was that a team really had been coached to make fouls, which shouldn't quite get a card but end our attack. Then take about 60 seconds in talking to the ref and delating the free kick. Likewise, every tumble wasted the same between falling over, getting a free kick and then a few players go over to the coach, get a drink until finally taking the free kick.
I wasn't left feeling disgusted or anything like that but just wished I could be a fly on the wall when they were being coached. Do they actually practise it in training?

My overriding feeling was how they had come away to the form team in the league, completely nullified both star players, our wing play and restricted us to a couple of half chances (stats do lie in this case). I came away with begrudging respect for them. For staying in the game, not getting frustrated and trying to keep pushing, we just deserved an equaliser and my how sweet it was.

That may become a template for playing us at CC. If so, I think we will be ok as it seemed to suit Wednesday perfectly. I'm not so sure how well other teams will be able to cope.

One word on the atmosphere. I got the impression the crowd were up for it and stayed with the lads the whole way. That was a crowd coming to support the team and despite not having much to get them going it felt good.

[bobbo]

I got back home quite late and wanted to get this post in first but knew I'd be too late, it's all been said . Bedsffc your study got it spot on , they must be being coached to play the game in such a disgraceful manner because it was indemic through all their players.
A real shame a big old club has to resort to those tactics, especially when they didn't need too they played superb football when not play acting.

[Old timer]

anti football ? They outplayed us, out fought us from the first minute. We were awful. They did nibble at our players a lot and there was a lot of pretending to be injured, but they better everywhere and their tactics were spot on. They should have killed us off in the first half.

The ref did get suckered in a bit, but I am surprised at this post. The only thing I came away thinking about was how second best we were and how lucky we are.

Agree with some of what you say but  see no reason why a good team like Wednesday clearly were resorts to such cynical tactics. Not Fulham's best but instead of saying how lucky they were you could well say how plucky they were and yes they could have won in the end through sheer determination.
The excitement of the last ten minutes got to them and a cooler head on the pitch would have made sure we came away with all the points



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[Bill2]

Couldn't make the game but watched the 90 minutes on FFCTV.

My opinion is: Their No 23 should have got at least two yellows in first half if not a straight red for out of control tackles. They had very good opportunities to score in first half, normally due to us giving the ball away and poor passing in very dangerous positions. I would have been upset if we had missed some of them. We should have had a penalty although on replay could have been outside the box, whatever, their player should have ben showed a red. So by now they would have been down to 9 men. Second half we were clearly better and could have scored more but all in all I thought we got away with it due to the misses they made in first half. Would agree 100% they time wasted all the match and rolled around after every tackle. Ref did cotton on to this and he refused to call the trainers on the pitch at the latter stages of the match.