Garry Monk pays price at Sheffield Wednesday after failing to deliver for Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri

Garry Monk was handed a difficult task at Sheffield Wednesday, and did not do enough to make a success of it.

He might argue he did not have enough time either, but then it was he who regularly pointed out that this season, time and patience were not on his club’s side.

Last night Monk was sacked as Owls manager after 58 matches which promised much initially, but failed to deliver.

Last week he ended a four-match losing streak by beating previously-unbeaten Bournemouth for a first home win since February and his last act as manager was a draw which lifted the team off the bottom of the table.

But it was not enough for owner Dejphon Chansiri.

Eleven games into the season, the Owls remain in the relegation zone and although their record is skewed by a points deduction because the club broke financial fair play rules before Monk’s time, they have only dropped his side two places.

Perhaps the bar set by Chansiri was unrealistically high. It was only on Thursday the Thai businessman said that despite the club’s summer points deduction, he still expected them to challenge for the play-offs.

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It was wildly unrealistic from a chairman who chided fans by saying: “Sometimes you think too big about yourselves. Sheffield Wednesday, actually is not that big.”

By then, the 12-point deduction his sale and lease-back of Hillsborough – or more accurately the circumstances around it – had been halved, but the damage had been done in the summer transfer window.

A club already trying to cut back its wage bill after the excesses which had caused the club to try to find a loophole to the Football League’s fair play rules now had a further handicap in trying to attract players. They were essentially signing up to a relegation battle without the renumeration that usually comes with – yes – a big Championship club.

Chansiri has changed his mind after throwing his lot in with Monk only a few months ago.

The collapse the Owls underwent in the second half of last season could easily have cost the manager his job.

At Christmas, on the back of an excellent defensive platform, they were well placed to mount a play-off push. Instead, they ended up fighting relegation. Too many of the defeats were spineless, pointing to a tired and jaded squad.

So Monk was allowed a full clearout – ten mainly senior players out, seven in, plus Josh Windass’s loan made permanent and Joost van Aken and Matt Penney recalled from loans elsewhere. The squad was not just leaner but younger – partly through necessity, partly by design.

Goalkeeper Keiren Westwood was ostracised but unlike Sam Hutchinson, could not be moved on – making it all the more awkward when young, home-grown, Wednesday-supporting goalkeepers Cameron Dawson and Joe Wildsmith were unable to quickly nail down the position.

Just as Monk had been unable to make permanent signings in his first transfer window, only loans, so he came to Hillsborough without being able to bring in any of his trusted backroom staff. In August, James Beattie, Darryl Flahavan and Andrew Hughes all joined.

Monk spoke regularly this season about changing the club’s “culture”.

Only late last season did he change the formation to three at the back.

None of these were small changes, quickly implemented.

“I haven’t had the normal luxury of being able to give them that nurturing period,” said Monk last week when asked about Penney being dropped to the under-23s after failing to build on early-season promise.

After a decent start to the season, culminating with victory at his old club Birmingham City – a January victory at another former stomping ground, Elland Road, was a highlight of the previous season – came four straight defeats, each worse than the last, which brought supporters’ long-standing reservations to the surface.

Monk is a cautious manager by nature, and his team only scored 56 goals in the 51 Championship games he oversaw – six in 11 matches this season. As the window went on he persuaded Chansiri to sign two more experienced Championship strikers in Jack Marriott and Callum Paterson, but both had been dropped to the bench in his final two matches.

The 3-0 defeat at Rotherham United was a low point. Even Monk used the word “fragility”, which was the big thing his culture shift was meant to end. At that stage it felt like Monk would go sooner rather than later.

The end might have come sooner had games not been played behind closed doors since last season restarted in June and criticism confined to social media and the airwaves. Monk won just six of 26 league games at Hillsborough.

He insisted it was wrong to judge the team – a new team – on anything other than this season, but as a realist he accepted he should be judged on his whole tenure. His record was won 18, drawn 15, lost 25.

Judgement has been passed and even those who feel it is hasty are unlikely to mourn his departure.

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