“You’d have to ask Birmingham”: Garry Monk clears up staff spat ahead of Sheffield Wednesday trip to St Andrews

The Owls make the trip to St Andrews tomorrow with James Beattie and Darryl Flahavan in their dugout for the first time since they were granted a departure from Birmingham in the summer.

Both assistant manager Beattie and goalkeeper coach Flahavan were placed on gardening leave last season rather than let them sign on at Wednesday, with only analyst Ryan Needs allowed to make the move.

There followed a high-profile spat between Monk and his successor Pep Clotet, his former assistant. Monk described the idea that he “didn't listen to a lot of people in football circles who warned me about the type of character he is” as an “error or judgement”.

Asked about what had happened, Monk appeared keen to draw a line under the issue, saying “the past is the past”, but offered a little clarity into the situation.

“They’d been with me for a number of years and they’d moved with me to various jobs,” he said. “We’d done that together.

“It was always a club decision from Birmingham. We thought it would be the normal situation, where a manager moves on the staff go with him or move as a new manager comes in.

“You’d have to ask Birmingham why. They didn’t feel that they wanted to do that and that was the situation, there was nothing we could do about that.

“I came to Sheffield and of course I thought they would be coming with me. That’s the normal process. For whatever reason Birmingham didn’t want that to happen and it is what it is.

“Obviously now they’re here and what probably should have happened a year ago has happened now and I’m very happy with that.

“I can see the difference in having that and hopefully it’s a benefit for the club and the players going forward.

“It’s what I wanted and what I needed to happen, yes it came later than I thought it would, but it doesn’t matter.

“The past is the past.”

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