'In deeper water Gab helped him to swim' – Gabriel Otegbayo's role in Cole McGhee's impressive Sheffield Wednesday start
Sheffield Wednesday's team-sheet – or rather the side which actually took to the field against Blackburn Rovers – was practically a distress signal. Boys are being asked to do men's jobs.
So their only Hillsborough clean sheet of 2025 – albeit partly due to Blackburn's inability to turn possession and territory into goal threat, and without one of their own – was yet another big character reference.
That debutant Cole McGhee was arguably their best player was a credit to 20-year-old centre-back Gabriel Otegbayo
Liam Cooper was named in a team missing 10 injured players and two to the Africa Cup of Nations but a reaction to some pre-match medicine saw him scratched.
It left an XI with 1,392 league starts at the beginning of 2025-26. It sounds reasonable until you realise 1,337 of them came from just four players.
So McGhee had two novices shepherding him through his first Championship start.
"It was very strong from him," said manager Henrik Pedersen of the 19-year-old. "He was very tired in the end, together with all the boys. Be proud of this young man."
But he needed help.
"Harry (Amass, an 18-year-old left wing-back) and Gab supported him," said Pedersen. "Barry (Bannan) was in front of him and how they supported him and helped him was really strong.
"It's very tough for the young guys but Gab, how he speaks with him (McGhee) all the time, it was amazing.
"Sometimes when you come from deeper water you have to swim. Gab helped him to swim. He likes to speak, he likes to organise.
"We know, not only from young players but also from older players, when you have a difficult period yourself, you stop speaking, you stop making people around you better.
"But in the last three or four games Gab's played now, I think he has been mentally on the highest level I have seen him.
"On Boxing Day he played his first 90 minutes in the Championship, on Monday he did it again. So, the body side is good and for the mental side it's good, positive development."
Sometimes when relegation is inevitable, as it is for the Owls, on minus seven points after exactly half their games, things get fractious.
Thinks seem to have gone the opposite way at Hillsborough.
"The culture won this point,” claimed Pedersen. "It was a game we could have lost for five, six, seven weeks ago, but we got a point."