Josh Windass and the fine margins of promotion

[paulrs]

The thread about Moore's future, and the impact of the injuries he's had to cope with, got me thinking about how much of a loss Windass in particular has been this season. I think it's fair to say that in pre-season most fans saw him as a key man - possibly THE key man - this year. So to lose him for virtually the whole season has been a hammer blow.

Even more so when you consider that if we beat MK and win our game in hand we in theory could be 4 points off automatic. Would Windass alone have closed that gap and had us tussling for the title with Wigan? I genuinely believe he would.

 

One stat I looked at was games missed by our rivals' key strikers.
Keane (Wigan) - 2 league games missed this season
Twine (MK) - 1
Smith (Rotherham) - 1
Hardie (Plymouth) - 7
Stewart (Sunderland) - 0
Vokes (Wycombe) - 3
Taylor (Oxford) - 2
Bonne (Ipswich) - 3
Windass (Sheff Wed) - 34

So Windass alone has missed double the number of games missed by the eight other top strikers put together. Incredible. Even Lee Gregory has missed 10, which again is more than any other the others.

This to me starts to look like the single biggest factor that has kept us out of the automatic promotion race. It seems perfectly reasonable that, had Windass played 40 games like his contemporaries, the additional goals he'd have scored would have secured us the handful of extra points we'd have needed to be looking at an automatic promotion place. After all, he's score 4 in 3+4 appearances when he has played and 12 in 41 starts at championship level for the club. 

So yes we can analyse Moore's team tinkering especially in the early part of the season, and the injuries we had at centre half, and all the late goals and set-piece goals and chances missed, but for me this is the single biggest factor that might cost us promotion. A fit Windass, playing 35-40 games, and we'd be top 2 now I'm sure of it.

[SiJ]

He has been a miss. 

 

You suspect that we ain't talking about a draw on Saturday if we had him in the team. 

 

Decent goalscorer who can score a wide variety of goals. 

 

Shame he's got hamstrings like cheesestrings. 

[prowl]

You could probably do the same exercise for central defenders and get a similar result.

[wakefieldowl]

Agree with op. I think wed have got a load more points with him. Sadly he serms way off playing and even if he does he will be way off having match sharpness.

A huge loss, but so typical of Wednesday to have key players that never play. The huge injury plague is why we are struggling to make 6th place

[GermanBird]

The whole injury problem this season is a pain.

 

Our replacement striker, whom we brought in in January is another example 

18 min on the pitch 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by GermanBird

[areNOTwhatTHEYseem]

Yep, Windass was crucial to our chances of competing at the very top of the division.

 

Having him out for the vast majority of the season has massively impacted us.

 

It's such a shame that he's had such injury troubles this season of all seasons, after so many years of being regularly fit prior to this.

[MRGRIM]

Horrible season when you look at it, long patches with no proper defenders, then no proper attackers. Can't imagine what where'd we be with a regular settled side, I get that injuries happen every season, but this has been something else.

[yeadonowl]

The striking recruitment as a whole was generally very poor 

 

We we’re aware of the severity of Windass injury yet recruited a central striker who hasn’t really scored which ever league he’s played in, a random wide man from Holland and a half fit player from Belguim

 

Gregory on paper was a useful addition but in reality was never going to play 40 games a season

 

We then compound the errors by bringing in another player in January whose injury record is poor

 

Whichever division we play in next season we need a complete overhaul of the striking department 

[paulrs]

The general injury situation has been discussed to death but I thought it would be interesting to consider Windass’s injury in isolation. Even if we’d still had all the other injury problems we’ve had, I think his injury alone has been the difference between finishing 4th-7th and finishing 1st or 2nd.

[areNOTwhatTHEYseem]

5 minutes ago, paulrs said:

The general injury situation has been discussed to death but I thought it would be interesting to consider Windass’s injury in isolation. Even if we’d still had all the other injury problems we’ve had, I think his injury alone has been the difference between finishing 4th-7th and finishing 1st or 2nd.

 

Yep.

 

Look at the difference Luongo has made to our midfield since he returned.

 

I reckon Windass would have made a similar impact up top.

 

An attacking player who has a direct hand in a goal every 188 mins at Championship level in a team as poor as ours has been for the past 18 months or so could have been huge for us in this division.

 

Instead, we've only seen glimpses of what could have been.

 

[edwinowl]

Good post and fair point. 
Don’t think there’s any doubt we would be too 2 now if he’s have stayed fit. 

[Orlando_Trustful]

49 minutes ago, paulrs said:

.

 

One stat I looked at was games missed by our rivals' key strikers.
Keane (Wigan) - 2 league games missed this season
Twine (MK) - 1
Smith (Rotherham) - 1
Hardie (Plymouth) - 7
Stewart (Sunderland) - 0
Vokes (Wycombe) - 3
Taylor (Oxford) - 2
Bonne (Ipswich) - 3
Windass (Sheff Wed) - 34

 

Incredible. 

[NorthernOwl]

40 minutes ago, GermanBird said:

The whole injury problem this season is a pain.

 

Our replacement striker, whom we brought in in January is another example 

18 min on the pitch 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgot we even signed him. Is he still here or did he go back to his club?

[HIGHERSTATE]

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

[royalowlisback]

It is unlucky, but he has hardly been prolific throughout his career, I think 16 goals in League 2 is his best to date.

 

Plus, turn it around, how lucky have we been that Bannan has hardly missed any games, or BPF, or Johnson....

[Animis]

what's his injury update?

[paulrs]

8 minutes ago, royalowlisback said:

It is unlucky, but he has hardly been prolific throughout his career, I think 16 goals in League 2 is his best to date.

 

Plus, turn it around, how lucky have we been that Bannan has hardly missed any games, or BPF, or Johnson....

 

You must be the first person I’ve ever seen on owlstalk use the adjective  ‘lucky’ when referring to Wednesday’s injury situation

 

[paulrs]

9 minutes ago, Animis said:

what's his injury update?

Moore said last week they were taking it in one week blocks. Think there was a suggestion he might return to full training at the end of this week but then he’ll need to do his volume so it’ll be Wycombe on the 23rd at the earliest I’d have thought.

 

Hoping for shades of Steve Maclean in 2005… back just in time to score a crucial play-off goal, or two

[royalowlisback]

6 minutes ago, paulrs said:

 

You must be the first person I’ve ever seen on owlstalk use the adjective  ‘lucky’ when referring to Wednesday’s injury situation

 

Yeah, never thought I's use it myself!

 

But, the point still stands, if Bannan had been as unlucky/unfit, we would be nowhere near the play-offs now - keeping Bannan, Byers and Luongo fit is way more important than Windass regaining fitness.

[paulrs]

I don’t know if it’s luck - isn’t it just the standard for most teams / players?
 

Were we ‘lucky’ to get promoted in 91 because Pearson, Palmer, Sheridan and Hirst all barely missed a game? 
 

I take your point on that midfield three, I think them and to a degree Johnson and Hunt staying fit is critical. But as our inability to kill teams off and lack of a to goalscorer shows I think Windass would’ve been every bit as critical. Maybe even more so.

 

If we can get anything out of him this season, like we did in those cameo appearances a few weeks back, it could make a massive difference and I reckon Moore knows it 

Edited April 11, 2022 by paulrs