Sheffield Star: Thursday 26th July 2006
Don't throw the towel in!
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Don't throw the towel in!
SHEFFIELD Wednesday today began a "rest cure" after their shock 4-0 defeat at Mansfield - with Paul Sturrock shouldering the blame for last night's weary performance.
The Owls manager has admitted "I got it wrong" and apologised to the Owls fans who made up almost half the Field Mill crowd of 3,665.
He pinpointed tiredness as the root cause of the flop and believes that he should have rested players instead of relying largely on the ones who arrived back from an unbeaten tour of the US only two days earlier.
Sturrock has now promised the squad a "quiet" build-up to Saturday's final major friendly, against Middlesbrough at Hillsborough, in the hope that they will soon be refreshed.
He said: "You have to give credit to Mansfield for their performance. But I think I got it wrong. Coming back from America, I debated whether to use the first team for this game or the kids. I went with the first team, and it was the leggiest team you ever saw. That's no excuse for the lack of attitude some of them showed. I can only apologise to the fans.
People know some of the players are quality players. They didn't show it. The players are very disappointed with themselves. They were very quiet. This is a real slap in the face to everybody at the club.
"I'm very disappointed with the way people didn't push themselves when they were tired. I was amazed at some of the individual performances. But I must put my hand up and say I got it wrong, no excuses."
But he praised some of members of his team: "The goalkeeper (Chris Adamson] did ok; Steve MacLean showed a good attitude ; Yoann Folly got better as the game went on. Sometimes it's too easy to blame tiredness - but it did show in players' performances. I know my players. That was not the real Wednesday."
Sturrock said setbacks in pre-season friendlies are not necessarily an accurate guide towards teams' League prospects: "At Dundee United we went to Germany in pre-season, and we didn't win one of eight pre-season friendlies e We won the title that year."
He is not saying Wednesday will top the Championship but he is convinced that last night's display was far from being characteristic of his squad's true abilities.
He pinpointed tiredness as the root cause of the flop and believes that he should have rested players instead of relying largely on the ones who arrived back from an unbeaten tour of the US only two days earlier.
Sturrock has now promised the squad a "quiet" build-up to Saturday's final major friendly, against Middlesbrough at Hillsborough, in the hope that they will soon be refreshed.
He said: "You have to give credit to Mansfield for their performance. But I think I got it wrong. Coming back from America, I debated whether to use the first team for this game or the kids. I went with the first team, and it was the leggiest team you ever saw. That's no excuse for the lack of attitude some of them showed. I can only apologise to the fans.
People know some of the players are quality players. They didn't show it. The players are very disappointed with themselves. They were very quiet. This is a real slap in the face to everybody at the club.
"I'm very disappointed with the way people didn't push themselves when they were tired. I was amazed at some of the individual performances. But I must put my hand up and say I got it wrong, no excuses."
But he praised some of members of his team: "The goalkeeper (Chris Adamson] did ok; Steve MacLean showed a good attitude ; Yoann Folly got better as the game went on. Sometimes it's too easy to blame tiredness - but it did show in players' performances. I know my players. That was not the real Wednesday."
Sturrock said setbacks in pre-season friendlies are not necessarily an accurate guide towards teams' League prospects: "At Dundee United we went to Germany in pre-season, and we didn't win one of eight pre-season friendlies e We won the title that year."
He is not saying Wednesday will top the Championship but he is convinced that last night's display was far from being characteristic of his squad's true abilities.