Sheffield Wednesday backroom given shake-up with addition of THREE new faces
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As The Star suggested last night both James Beattie and Darryl Flahavan have joined following their protracted release from Birmingham City this week. Beattie, who has worked with Monk at all of his previous clubs, joins as assistant manager with Flahavan on board as goalkeeping coach.
Former Leeds United captain Andrew Hughes has joined as a first team coach having most recently been employed by Sheffield United as an under-23s coach.
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Hide AdThe 42-year-old is an experienced campaigner with coaching experience at Bolton, Rotherham United and Crystal Palace under his belt. Most notably he worked under David Wagner as a first-team coach at Huddersfield Town, achieving promotion to the Premier League through the playoffs at Wednesday’s expense back in 2017.
The signing of Beattie brings to an end a long courting by the Owls, with Monk making clear early on in his tenure his desire to add him to the staff. Monk was initially only able to bring in tactical analyst Ryan Needs as Birmingham held firm on the compensation figure required to release the former England striker.
It was explained that Beattie had been placed on gardening leave and was effectively ‘working from home’ after former Monk assistant Pep Clotet took the top job at St Andrews.
There has been no word on the positions of the existing coaching staff and they join Lee Bullen, Nicky Weaver and Neil Thompson in the Owls’ ranks.
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Hide AdSpeaking to The Star during lockdown, Bullen gave an insight into the workings of the dugout under Monk.
He said: “Ultimately all decisions of line-ups and tactics and team selection is made by Garry, he'll give our opinions and we'll give our opinions, we're not just yes men. But ultimately the final decision on that sort of thing will come down to Gaz. It's about earning trust.
"It can't have been easy for him, coming in at that point on his own, especially. But he's got 100 per cent support for everybody at the football club.”