Sheffield Wednesday 0 v Swansea City 0 - FA Cup R5

Saturday 17th February 2018
Emirates FA Cup Fifth Round
at Hillsborough Stadium
Sheffield Wednesday (0) 0
Swansea City (0) 0
Admission £20. Programme £3.
Attendance 19,427

On Christmas Eve 2017, Sheffield Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal, having led the Owls to the play offs in the previous two seasons, left Hillsborough by mutual consent, after a run of indifferent form and poor results, had seen his side slip to fifteenth in the Championship table.

As Carvalhal departed, the club owner Dejphon Chansiri said: "I maintain a huge amount of respect for Carlos as

a coach and as a person and he will always be welcome at Hillsborough." I don't think that anybody expected him to be back quite so soon though.
On December 28th, the highly respected Portuguese coach took up his seventeenth managerial position since 1998, with his sixteenth club (he had two spells at Vitória de Setúbal 2003-04 and 2007-08) Swansea City and he immediately transformed the struggling South Wales team's season, where he has led them up the Premier League table and out of the relegation places, since his arrival at the Liberty Stadium.

Believe it or not, Swansea are actually second in the top flight's current form table, having lost just one of their previous eleven games in all competitions since Carvalhal's arrival. For the record, the Swans had only won five of their previous twenty three games this season before he was appointed.
Following the Owls 3-1 FA Cup Fourth Round win v Reading and the Swans 8-1 Fourth Round Replay thrashing of Notts County, Wednesday and Swansea found themselves paired together in today's Fifth round tie. It's a funny old game football, innit Saint!?
Incidentally details of several Owls (and Worksop town) games are available to view on Devon Cash's excellent blog, that can be found by left clicking this LINK

Last weekend, following on from their thrashing of Notts County, Swansea beat Burnley 1-0 in a Premier League fixture, while Jos Luhukay's side drew one apiece at Oakwell on Saturday against Barnsley, then picked up three points on Tuesday night, against third placed Derby County at Hillsborough, to ease their increasing worries that sliding ever closer to a potential relegation battle, as they built up a nine point cushion above the drop zone.
Certainly, on the afternoon that the Owls were dismembered by Birmingham City, when I visited Hillsborough for a Championship fixture earlier this month, they looked to be heading downhill faster than the French 'Snowboard Cross' gold medal winner Pierre Vaultier at the currently ongoing PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

A work associate of mine who apparently supports (but never watches) Sheffield Wednesday, told me that his team were too big to go down and had never been in any danger of getting into trouble at any time.
Poke the bee's nest that is football with a provocative stick at your peril, I say.
Incidentally, he's the same bloke who believes Alice cooper is a woman, thinks that Lobo's 1971 chart hit: "Me and You & a Dog Named Boo", is the greatest song ever recorded in the entire history of popular music... he's obviously never heard Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Nothing Rhymed", or "The Streak" by Ray Stevens ('Don't look Ethel!'), and has a notion that the internet is just a passing fad. that will never catch on.
To be fair to him though, the Lobo (real name Kent LaVoie) composed, canine influenced tune, did actually reach number 1 in New Zealand and stayed at the top of the hit parade there for four whole weeks... so now you know kids ;-)

Anyway, steering quickly back on topic from wherever this blog was just heading off on a tangent: Sheffield Wednesday FC turned 150 years old at the beginning of this season and have been celebrating the landmark accordingly.
Today, the first ever honour they won, 150 years ago this week, the Cromwell Cup, was on display in the 'Owls Megastore'.
The Cromwell Cup is the second oldest trophy in world football, pre-dated only by the Youdan Cup.
The 1868 Cromwell Cup Final was played at Bramall Lane in February 1868 where Garrick FC provided the opposition.
Wednesday won the game and subsequently lifted this highly polished trophy, by virtue of a 1-0 scoreline, after extra time.

Sheffield Wednesday:
Cameron Dawson, Jack Hunt, Frederico Venancio, David Jones, Daniel Pudil, Morgan Fox, George Boyd, Jacob Butterfield (Joey Pelupessy, 70), Adam Reach, Ross Wallace (Lucas Joao, 80), Atdhe Nuhiu.
Unused subs - Joe Wildsmith, Glenn Loovens, Ash Baker, Connor Kirby, Frederik Nielsen.
Swansea City:
Kristoffer Nordfeldt, Connor Roberts, Kyle Naughton, Mike van der Hoorn, Kyle Bartley (capt), Martin Olsson (Sam Clucas, 79), Luciano Narsingh (Nathan Dyer, 64), Ki Sung-Yueng, Tom Carroll, Wayne Routledge, Tammy Abraham (Jordan Ayew, 67).
Unused subs - Erwin Mulder, Federico Fernandez, Adnan Maric, Daniel James.

This result means that these two teams will meet each other again, at the Liberty Stadium on Tuesday 27th February, to decide which one of them will go through to the quarter final of the FA Cup, as this stalemate ended all square and goalless, with both sides only managing to muster just four goal scoring attempts apiece throughout the entire game, during this early kick off that was being screened live by BT Sport.
The Owls have now needed replays to decide two of their three ties in this competition this season (they also drew against Carlisle at Brunton Park in the Third Round, before beating them at Hillsborough in the rematch), whilst Swansea have drawn away from home in all three rounds, before taking: Wolves, Notts County and now Sheffield Wednesday, back to South Wales for a replays.

No doubt I'm showing my age here, but in my humble (and probably minority) traditionalist and set in my way opinion, instead of lamenting about fitting replays into an already top heavy fixtures schedule, perhaps clubs should field their strongest available starting eleven in FA Cup games and endeavour to win them first time out by applying themselves wholeheartedly to the task.
This isn't the feckin' Simod Cup, the Mercantile Trophy, some pre-season knockout tournament in the Isle of Man, or even the Cromwell Cup; it is 'the greatest cup competition in the world' and it really annoys me when

Iconic

some clubs (most clubs even) treat it like a major inconvenience, rather than the prestigious entity that it is (or at least was) and talk about having bigger priorities.
I'm not specifically singling out either of today's teams from my soapbox at this juncture, or irking my gander particularly at some of the post match comments their respective managers made, but it's a saddening mindset that has crept in across professional football at all levels. And let it be said that the FA themselves must shoulder a large proportion of the blame for diminishing the status of what was once their own flagship competition.

The game burst into life as early as the second minute, when Atdhe Nuhiu flicked the ball onto Jacob Butterfield out on the right flank, who played a first time defence unlocking pass into the path of Adam Reach, who advanced into the Swans area, before hitting an angled drive across the face of the goal, that Kristoffer Nordfeldt did well to push past the back post at the expense of a corner.
Alas, the game didn't sustain it's early impetus, but the hosts showed enough of themselves to emerge as the better team in the first half, while the Swans picked up the pace after the interval, but not enough to actually dominate the game or give the Wednesday defence too many problems, as they looked more comfortable this afternoon, adapting to the strategy of the Luhukay regime, than they did when I saw them in action (twice) previously, towards the end of last month.

The visitors perhaps should have had a penalty, when Tammy Abraham was shoved in the back of the neck by the left hand of Cameron Dawson, as the young keeper rose to punch the ball away with his right, while Daniel Pudil also barged into the Swans number ten to help him on his way to the deck, but the match referee Paul Tierney, who seemed to be well placed, interpreted things otherwise and the Owls escaped any kind of punishment.
At half time I viewed the action replay of the incident on one of the screens on the North stand concourse and the evidence strongly suggested that Mr Tierney had called things wrongly... and it was another one of those decisions to put into the 'these things balance themselves out over the course of a season' folder. Maybe those 'lucky elephants' stood outside the main doors at Hillsborough, do have talismanic properties after all.

Dawson was right in  the thick of things again, when he pulled of an acrobatic and agile save, to turn the ball over his crossbar, from Mike van der Hoorn's thumping close range header, after Kyle Naughton had picked out the run of the Swans central defender, with a pinpoint delivery from out on the right. Naughton too, had been forced to start the game at the back for the visitors, after Alfie Mawson had to be withdrawn from Carvalhal's team late in the day, when he tweaked his knee during the pre-match warm up.
Swansea for their part, were displaying an eye-catching array of passing and retaining the ball while being closely

marked, but were being restricted to doing so in areas of the pitch that weren't likely to cause any problems for their hosts, for whom Reach had made a good start, switching which side he was running at the Swansea defence from to their consternation, Nuhiu showed a few good touches on the floor, that belied his big target man reputation, while Pudil, Frederico Venancio and David Jones linked up well with the Owls midfield from defence; but in truth, what both teams needed going in at half time was some blue pills and a quick look at Porn Hub (whatever that is), because they all really needed to get their rockets up and show some belated penetration.
Moments before the whistle sounded for the interval, Reach got his head to a Ross Wallace from out on the left wing, but glanced the ball wide of the target.
Thus far, putting it in layman's terms, the tactics employed thus far had very much been a case of: all balls and no willy.
HT: Owls 0 v Swans 0

Neither side were asking enough questions of their opponents in the final third as the second half dragged on... and on and on, even though: Jordan Ayew and Nathan Dyer, both of who were second half substitutes for the Swans, tried to catch Dawson out with speculative long range shots, that didn't really have enough purchase in them to trouble the Wednesday keeper unduly.
Venancio, the Owls player who had been responsible for recently gifting a couple of goals to visiting teams, wasn't causing Dawson any grief this time out and actually put in an accomplished performance this  afternoon.
That said, a comedy intervention or two might've provided the crowd with a bit more entertainment than was actually on offer for most of the second half.
Hunt slipped the ball through to Nuhiu on the edge of the visitors area, who twisted and turned to give himself room to get his shot away and Nordfeldt would've been relieved to hold onto the ball  as it bounced back into play off the right hand post.

Lucas Joao was inches away from finding the net from Reach's cross right at the death, but as his improvised close range effort trickled past the left hand post, the referee's assistant had already raised his flag anyway.
FT: Sheffield Wednesday 0 v Swansea City 0
Before the two sides meet again a week on Tuesday to decide who will reach the quarter final, Swansea have a home game against Brighton & Hove Albion in a Premier League game next weekend, while the Owls have an away trip to Millwall to look forward to on Tuesday night, followed by a home game against Aston Villa next Saturday.

And as for me; well, my next game kicks off in just over 40 minutes, when Hallam take on Swallownest at Sandygate in a NCEL First Division local derby match, which is why I arrived at Hillsborough early today, to bag one of the optimum parking spots for getting away in double quick time on the final whistle.
*Note to a pest of a pedestrian.
The pavement is where you should walk, not along the A61, so if your big fat arse is bruised from where a wing mirror 'allegedly' thwacked you really hard, then that is your own stupid fault. I have it on very good authority that the driver saw the funny side of it.
Footnote:
Added 8.20PM Saturday 17.2.18
FA Cup quarter final draw
Ties to take place from 16th to 19th March
Leicester v Chelsea
Manchester United v Brighton
Sheffield Wednesday or Swansea v Rochdale or Tottenham
Wigan or Manchester City v Southampton