Alan Biggs' Sheffield Wednesday column: Owls are not shot-shy - they just need more belief

Most frustrating of all, the way these have unfolded has been like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Totally avoidable and witnessed by thousands of unsurprised but helpless bystanders.

News of EFL charges extending to the club’s owner, the finance director and the former CEO deepened the Profitability and Sustainability gloom this week, however fiercely they are to be contested.

But, impossible though all this is to trivialise in any way, the only refuge is in the 90 minutes of a game and at least entertainment seems to be as much on the rise as the potentially all-consuming wider worries.

Shoot on sight can be revealed as the recent instruction from Garry Monk, promising more than usually attacking fare at Hillsborough this weekend.

Another portent is that opponents Brentford hammered Luton 7-0 last Saturday. But Wednesday are posing some positive stats of their own.

Monk’s side have amassed 42 shots in the last two games - 18 in the agonising draw with Birmingham followed by 24 in the win at Charlton.

The conversion rate might need upping but Monk is convinced a change of attitude will achieve that.

He’s using the example of Kadeem Harris’s late equaliser against Birmingham, amid a below par sequence of results, as the way to rekindle the Owls’ season.

It applies particularly to those players, a good few, who are capable of running at the opposition and regularly find themselves with a glimpse of goal.

To Adam Reach, for instance, to Jacob Murphy when he plays and to Fernando Forestieri.

And to Harris, whose three goals this season barely reflect his menace.

But it’s still more than Reach and Forestieri, and the full three ahead of Barry Bannan, yet to register for all his general pedigree.

Cue the circumstances of Harris’s latest goal. He horribly hashed a shot as the Owls chased back last midweek and found himself running at the visitors defence moments later.

Instead of being cowed, he backed himself to spear a shot into the bottom corner. A great goal in all the circumstances.

Quite simply, Monk wants more of that, still believing he has the players to do it.

And it’s vital when you consider top scorer Steven Fletcher, excellent as a line-leader, needs support on top of his eight goals.

The strong argument that Fletcher requires a second striker alongside was vindicated by the 4-4-2 of the Charlton win - with the manager’s tendency towards 4-5-1 having been open to question.

However, Monk feels there is an untapped supply of goals in the team whatever the formation. “We should be putting teams away, they should be on the end of a hiding,” he told me. “I’m sure sooner or later we’ll do it.”

How? Well, be like Harris. “I want that conviction he showed against Birmingham. I want this ... when you get an opportunity to shoot, you shoot.

“You have to trust yourself and keep doing it. Massive credit to Kadeem. It was a poor shot before the goal.

"To have that belief to then take the next opportunity, that’s what’s needed.

“And that’s the bit that’s going to get us that little part that’s missing.”

Whether it’s points to get back in the top six, or to avoid relegation, there’s a platform to kick on again.