Darren Moore dismisses Barry Bannan over-reliance notion after surprise Sheffield Wednesday sub call

With the Owls drawing at home to Charlton Athletic, chasing the game and with the eyes of the club’s expectant fan base burning through, Darren Moore decided to make a sub. And as the fourth official’s board was lifted with Barry Bannan’s number on it, a few thousand eyebrows lifted with it.

Had Wednesday failed to grab the winner, which came courtesy of a Tyreeq Bakinson header from Josh Windass’ pinpoint cross, the decision would likely have dominated much of the post-match discourse and attracted more than a few questions from the club’s Bannan-adoring supporters.

Speaking to The Star post-match, Moore explained the decision to substitute his star man, who plundered 21 goal contributions in an awards-laden season last time out and has – and will continue to be – at the heart of much of Wednesday’s success going forward for several years.

“The heat was huge,” Moore said. “I was looking at players and some wilted in the heat. That’s not having a go at them, it’s just the heat. Some of them wilted.

“I was looking at them and they just couldn’t get going. Baz, bless him, as much as he tries, he’s only human. We wanted to make the change and Josh in the 10 gave us that little bit more of what we need.

“That’s nothing against Baz, we just needed to work it around with the subs and it gave us that impetus we needed.”

Moore accepted that had that winner not arrived, he would have been faced with questions over the decision to replace his skipper.

He was replaced by Sylla Sow, which allowed Moore to move Josh Windass into the number 10 position.

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With George Byers, Bakinson and Lee Gregory having come on some minutes earlier, it presented a formidable attacking unit even without star man Bannan, who it is felt has shouldered much of the burden of attacking intent at Wednesday for too long.

Speaking candidly, Moore opened up on his desire to shift that burden across other shoulders and for a perceived over-reliance on the Scotland international to end.

And on any supporter or media notion that Bannan’s presence is indispensable when chasing games or otherwise, the Wednesday boss made clear he felt it was time for confidence that other players are able to open up matches in the same style as the club captain. The pair share a close relationship.

“Even though the support is all about Barry Bannan because we know he was League One player of the season and all that, we’ve got to realise that on some days it doesn’t quite run for some players,” Moore said.

“One player doesn’t make a team, we’ve got a squad.

“If Barry Bannan comes off, we’ve got to give the guy that comes on that support. The message is that we’re all in it together as one. The supporters want us to win, I want us to win.

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“The decisions we make are always with the best intentions; to win.

“This is the mentality and the culture I’m trying to change at the football club; we’re all in it together, we all swim the tide together. We all win, or we don’t win, but we do that together.

“We’ve won games with Barry Bannan in and we’ve lost games with Barry Bannan in. It’s a squad, it’s a team. It’s not like being a tennis player or a snooker player where you go and play on your own, we’re a team.

“The team is always bigger than one individual and that’s always been the message here. If anything happens to Baz – and god willing it doesn’t – we have to carry on.”

As ever, Wednesday face a gruelling fixture schedule in the coming weeks and this week is no different, with tricky trips to fellow promotion hopefuls Peterborough United and Bolton Wanderers arriving in the next six days.

Moore has grown a strong stable of midfielders with Bakinson, Byers, Will Vaulks, Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Dennis Adeniran having impressed at stages of the season so far.

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Though there is no doubt Bannan remains Wednesday’s main man and that he will of course play the vast majority of minutes in the club’s quest for Championship status this time out, with so much competition for places in midfield, the Owls boss says he feels able to rotate his options in the middle of the park.

That’s not a position Wednesday have really found themselves in in recent seasons and Moore’s message to fans is that while Bannan remains the midfield talisman, any reaction to him being in or out of the squad or being substituted during games should not be met with a knee-jerk reaction going forward.

The Scot has already played in different roles this season and with the likes of Byers able to deputise in a deeper creative berth and Windass having impressed playing as a number 10, the feeling is that any over-reliance on Bannan is unnecessary.

“We have to rotate him around as well,” Moore said. “He’s not going to play Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday. Because with the magnitude of games we have to rotate. That’s what we’ve got the squad for and that’s why we’ve tried to double up with two players in each position.

“If one dips, we can put the other one in to keep the momentum going.

“Hopefully today you saw a small example of that.”