Sheffield Wednesday haven’t hit reset – they’ve restored to factory settings: Joe Crann’s column

After Jos Luhukay and Steve Bruce the Owls turned it off and on again, with the raft of exits under Garry Monk they performed a reset, now – as Darren Moore’s project gets fully underway in League One – Wednesday are back to factory settings. And it feels clean.

With Moore, the club has got that new phone feeling again. It’s running smoother, there’s no lag, things get done quicker. You’re not worried it’s going to just turn off without warning.

And it’s early days, of course. Every manager is judged on results, that’s just the nature of the beast. But it does feel like there’s been a shift.

The exits over the summer mean that, as of next week, Wednesday’s weekly wage bill falls off a cliff. Add to that the fact that – for at least this window – the Owls can’t spend anything on transfer fees, and you’ve got a recipe for a level of sustainability that hasn’t been feasible for some time now.

And the signings have been smart…

Yes, it’s very easy to say they’re good signings before they’ve kicked a ball in anger, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that all of Wednesday’s new signings could’ve joined Championship clubs, but instead they’ve come on board at Project Moore and are taking aim at promotion.

It’s a sign that, despite it all, Sheffield Wednesday remain a drawcard. But it’s also a massive indicator of the pull that Moore has in football circles. To make the signings he’s made in the current climate feels pretty remarkable, and it’s absolutely no surprise that even some of the angriest of Wednesdayites seem to be allowing themselves a twinge of optimism for the season ahead.

Moore seems to be being left to his own devices, being allowed to work his magic, and when you add that to the new kit partner and the very successful 2021/22 shirt launch, there are green shoots coming out of Dejphon Chansiri’s club that do give a sense of a changing of the tide.

Even something like the fact that the manager is looking to utilise the loan market better in terms of how it’s used to develop young Owls players is a step in the right direction. Wednesday have been poor in that sense of late, and it’s a market that can be mutually beneficial.

With the current gaffer, it feels like there’s a plan. A roadmap. A way forward that is being pieced together rather than stumbled along. And – for many fans – that’s all they want to see after what’s happened in the last 18 months. It’s incredibly refreshing.

Darren Moore has restored Sheffield Wednesday to factory settings – and hopefully any previous bugs are now gone for good.

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