Garry Monk believes one of the best things his parents did for him was to ensure he developed a thick skin.
A tough carapace acquired during a youth in which he juggled schoolwork with helping out in his father’s industrial cleaning business and learned the benefits of greeting adversity by “pulling yourself together” is proving extremely useful at Sheffield Wednesday.
It is not so long ago that Monk was being tipped as a potential England manager during a honeymoon stint in charge of Swansea but as he prepares for FA Cup fifth-round tie with Manchester City at Hillsborough, he is clinging on to his job.
Management has always been a game of snakes and ladders but, as Pep Guardiola heads to the Steel City, Monk could do without certainty being quite such a stranger.
“It’s probably the most difficult moment in my career,” he says after a run of one win in nine Championship games. “I’m trying to help the players and I know the work I do works. But results haven’t been good enough.”
This downward spiral has not only led to Wednesday sliding out of the promotion race and falling to 12th place but seen speculation about his future intensify following Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat by Derby. It seems he will remain at least until the end of the season but the situation looks fragile and some key relationships appear fractured.
“It feels like the work we’re doing isn’t being rewarded,” says a 40-year-old whose horizon was already clouded by the threat of Wednesday being deducted points after alleged breaches of the Football League’s profit and sustainability rules. “It’s bitterly frustrating but the responsibility for results is all mine.”
At least City’s visit represents a different sort of pressure. “There are very few chinks in Manchester City’s armour and we won’t be afforded chances to make mistakes but we have to believe we can win,” Monk says. “It’s a challenge, a unique opportunity against some of the best in the world. I’m sure the players will rise to the occasion. We musn’t fear it.
“We’re not expected to beat City but it’s definitely not a free hit. If we can do ourselves justice it can maybe provide us with a lift for the rest of the season.”
Monk’s still fairly fledgling managerial career has seen him sacked by Swansea and walk out on Leeds before being fired by Middlesbrough only to meet the same fate at Birmingham. At St Andrew’s he grappled with a nine-point deduction for breaches of EFL financial rules that were nothing to do with him.
Dejphon Chansiri, the Wednesday owner, could do without the team sitting 10 points clear of third-bottom Middlesbrough in a season where the EFL has the power to strip his suddenly relegation-threatened club of up to 21 points if they are found guilty of misconduct. Wednesday have said they will “vigorously defend” their position.
That prospect has amplified scrutiny surrounding Monk’s controversial decision to exile two influential players – the midfielder Sam Hutchinson and the goalkeeper Keiren Westwood – from first-team training. The reasoning remains unspecified but the pair are powerful, sometimes challenging, dressing-room voices and Hutchinson’s on-pitch leadership has arguably been particularly missed.
Perhaps significantly, the pair experienced similar stints in the club’s deep freeze under a former Wednesday manager, Jos Luhukay, before Steve Bruce’s installation cemented their returns to the fold.
Although Westwood denies a rift with his latest manager – “it’s nothing personal,” he maintains – Monk has never been afraid to fall out with players or colleagues; Bruce’s successor is, for instance, no longer on speaking terms with his former Swansea and Birmingham assistant Pep Clotet.
Although Monk has collected plenty of fans at his assorted clubs, shades of the coldly technocratic side which emerged at Middlesbrough are said to have resurfaced. “Garry kept himself to himself to himself here and wasn’t familiar towards the players and staff,” Jonathan Woodgate, Boro’s manager, said recently. “Some coaches do that.”
This persona does not perturb Wednesday’s 32-year-old striker Steven Fletcher, who sounds convincing enough when he praises Monk’s methods and mastery of “little details”, but there is a fine line between strong management and self-destruction, the courage to stand alone and the need to sometimes compromise.
Yet there is also a powerful case for a radical reform of a Wednesday squad Bruce was keen to remodel before his move to Newcastle last summer.
Monk says it is “not the time” to discuss “the bigger picture” as he resolutely straight-bats reporters’ questions. “I need to focus on winning matches but, for me, the bigger the challenge the better. That’s the mentality I’ve been given.”
