Marked for Jamal Lowe
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 May 2027
Micky van de Ven and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 May 2027
Tayo Adaramola falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout17 May 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market17 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mitchel Bakker’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout17 May 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Connal Trueman is on it.
The dugout17 May 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sheffield Wednesday, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout17 May 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad17 May 2027
Gabriel Otegbayo has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Mar 2027
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match20 Mar 2027
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sheffield Wednesday can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad22 Mar 2027
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Market22 Mar 2027
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Sheffield Wednesday can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Market22 Mar 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Sheffield Wednesday have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Sheffield Wednesday training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tayo Adaramola is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Market22 Mar 2027
Jamal Lowe is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sheffield Wednesday has been clear about where Jamal Lowe stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Mar 2027
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Sheffield Wednesday are no longer polite ones.
Match13 Mar 2027
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A season average of 7.11 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Sheffield Wednesday know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Match13 Mar 2027
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Match13 Mar 2027
West Bromwich Albion left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Tayo Adaramola falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
“I watch every Sheffield Wednesday game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sheffield United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Feb 2027
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Jamal Lowe scored in the 88th minute, Norwich City had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Sheffield Wednesday took the lot.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Age has not caught Liam Palmer yet — 7.83
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad15 Feb 2027
He is 20, he is averaging 7.12, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Sheffield Wednesday asked and Modena said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces15 Feb 2027
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Looking ahead15 Feb 2027
Ipswich Town next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Mason Burstow was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Dec 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 21. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from George Brown at 21 — 7.86
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. George Brown did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Marked 8.21 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Christopher Ross could afford to be generous.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. Sheffield Wednesday lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Jamal Lowe runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.