Victorious manager should be allowed to finish the job

IF yesterday’s Steel City derby win for Sheffield Wednesday achieves one thing it will silence the ridiculous rumours doing the rounds that Gary Megson is getting sacked.

A run of four successive defeats, coupled with unsubstantiated rumours that the Owls manager was not seeing eye-to-eye with chairman Milan Mandaric or chief executive Paul Aldridge, had seen speculation mount over Megson’s future just 12 months into the job.

In that short time Megson has had to wheel and deal in the transfer market, relying heavily on the loan system to bolster the Hillsborough club’s promotion push.

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From the depths of League One, he has made Wednesday a solid outfit who this morning sit third in the table and just two points off automatic promotion.

So he could be permitted the widest smile at Hillsborough yesterday after Chris O’Grady’s 73rd-minute header proved the difference in an enthralling Steel City derby.

The speculation will stop, for now, but with Lee Clark being sacked at Huddersfield Town with a record of just three defeats in more than 50 matches, then a run of three league defeats in a week for Wednesday before yesterday’s success will naturally bring out the doom-mongerers.

Megson, of course, is a lifelong Wednesday supporter, having been brought up watching his dad Don captain the Owls in the Sixties.

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So victory yesterday was all the more sweeter, as Megson never played against the Blades in his playing days at Hillsborough, meaning this was his first taste of a derby victory in his home town.

Thirty-nine minutes had elapsed, with the match finely balanced at 0-0, when the 4,500 travelling Blades fans aimed a few choice derogatory chants at the man fondly tagged the ‘ginger Mourinho’ in S6.

Megson’s response was immediate, pulling up his training top to expose the club badge and beat his chest in defiance.

It was one of those classic moments that will be dragged out of the archives for years to come. Think David Pleat, Jose Mourinho and Bobby Stokoe and you get the measure of the moment. It even outdid Brian Laws’s famous scarf-waving celebration in this fixture of several years ago.

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United fans retorted with ‘You’re getting sacked in the morning’.

O’Grady’s goal will surely silence that patter for the foreseeable future, and only a terrific recovering tackle from Lecsinel Jean-Francois prevented debut-maker Michail Antonio from doubling Wednesday’s lead.

It wasn’t a match high on goalscoring chances for the 36,364 crowd – likely to be the highest attendance outside of the Premier League this season – Lee Williamson unlucky to see his 20-yard free kick bounce back off the crossbar, and Richard Cresswell unable to beat Stephen Bywater with the follow-up header.

Texts were flying around from the beam-back at Bramall Lane – where over 9,000 Blades were watching the game on a big screen – that replays showed the ball had crossed the line. But there was no need for television evidence to prove Ryan Lowe was just inches away from converting Antonio’s drilled low cross in front of an expectant Kop.

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Sat wedged in the Hillsborough press box, with the Blades media staff on my left, and Wednesday’s on my right, I almost felt like a referee.

Antonio, on a short-term deal from Reading, is the 11th loan player employed by Wednesday this season and how Megson must look on with envy at the stability that his opposite number Danny Wilson has at United.

Yesterday’s defeat was a hiccup for the Blades, but they are still in the driving seat when it comes to automatic promotion and going up alongside Charlton. I just hope Megson is now allowed to finish the job he has started and make it a Sheffield double.