Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah was battled through a challenging first season in blue and white – but is setting about stepping up as the Owls enter the business end of the campaign.
Injury woes have dogged his effort so far, with returns to selection contention proving fleeting for the most part. Chalobah has played just 327 minutes of league football across 11 appearances this season and from early January to his stepping back into the team this month, less than an hour across 63 days.
But his performance in coming off the bench in Wednesday’s whirlwind turnaround win at Carrow Road on Tuesday night suggests he’s able to make up for lost time as Wednesday aim for a stellar end to their campaign. The form he has shown in patches at S6 has shown plenty to suggest he can have a major impact, perhaps mainly from the bench, in the coming weeks.
Chalobah’s is a skillset is one sought after at second tier level and can change games, as evidenced in the 3-2 win at Norwich City. His ability to read a midfield allows him to break things up and his presence in the most important area of the pitch is noted. After Owls boss Danny Röhl admitted after his return to the pitch at Plymouth on Saturday that he had had ‘very direct’ words with him, it appears Chalobah is back stating his case.
“He showed against Plymouth and he helped us in the last 30 minutes,” Röhl told The Star. “Today I think maybe he felt he could start or something like this, but he worked hard in the last weeks and he is there. He gives us a good structure and helped us in the right moments. He ran, he covered, all the things he needs to do as a six. It was a good performance and I said this, he was our player of the match. But all the players around him in the second half gave a key point.
“Sometimes he is a bit of a secret (in terms of his personality), but every player is different. His reaction in the last few weeks after our meeting was outstanding, I was very honest with him and it is about performance on the pitch. It is also true in our journey with this group, every player has these moments. Today it was a moment for Nate.”
Chalobah replaced Shea Charles at the break as Röhl pulled the system to one with two holding midfielders. It proved inspired and along with the performances of Chalobah and co offered a turnaround few in the ground will forget in a hurry.
Owls star man Charles was playing on a tally of nine yellow cards for the season, with one more leaving him liable to a suspension that would have seen him miss out on Sunday’s Steel City derby and the trip to Cardiff City on March 29. Explaining the call to bring him off, Röhl revealed his blueprint for the second half, with decisions almost made on further exits.
He said: “When you play against a team that is so fast with the transition moments and sometimes you need a tactical foul to stop or you come too late, then you risk a yellow card. It is not just Sunday, it would be two games out. It was not an easy decision, but we changed the shape and I wanted to play with two sixes so we made this sub.
“It is maybe brave when you are 2-0 down, I said some words to say that in the next 15 or 20 minutes we would try to come back into the game and then I would decide in which direction we go. In one moment we came back and we scored good goals from our side.”
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