If the rumours and speculation doing the rounds at the moment are to be believed then Alan Irvine’s future at Sheffield Wednesday could well hinge on the club picking up positive results over the Christmas and New Year period.
The Football League calendar has thrown up a run of 4 fixtures in the space of 9 days with the Owls run of games starting at Tranmere Rovers on Boxing Day. It may be freezing outside but Alan Irvine will surely be feeling the heat if his team fail to pick up a good return of points from these matches.
Rumours of managerial movement have been doing the rounds since Milan Mandaric made his initial steps to take control of the club at the start of the month and when the takeover was made official last week such talk increased in volume on the back of a shocking away result for the Owls. There has been nothing official to suggest that Irvine’s position is under threat but with promotion a major priority this season the club can ill afford to suffer too many more defeats like the one at Exeter last weekend.
The trip to Tranmere is followed by a home game against Yeovil 2 days later and the Owls are also at Hillsborough on New Year’s Day where they face inconsistent Peterborough. The holiday period’s run of matches is concluded with a tough trip to Huddersfield on January 3rd. Wednesday then face Bristol City in the F.A. Cup on the 8th and return to league action on the 15th, at home against Charlton.
It may sound a bit harsh and in some respects unfair to talk about replacing the manager with the club sitting in second position in the division but that place is a little false. Wednesday have lost two of their last three matches in the league and they have played two more matches than all of the other teams in the top six. If the teams around them were to pick up just an average return of points from their games in hand the Owls would find themselves out of the play-off positions.
Wednesday have already lost 8 out of 21 matches in League One, just 4 less than they lost in total during the 2004/05 promotion winning season when they finished in 5th place and a poor run of results over the festive period could see them struggling to stay in contention. Most fans appreciate that Irvine has assembled a good team but seems to be struggling to get the best out of them on a consistent basis. It has been said that the squad as a whole is too small and Mandaric has intimated that funds will be available to strengthen during the January transfer window. Whether Irvine will be the man charged with utilising these funds may well depend on how things go over the next couple of weeks.