Late arrival, the killer moment and training: Unpacking Ike Ugbo’s struggle at Sheffield Wednesday
An adjustment of his shin pads, a wipe of his palms on the beck of his shirt. Hillsborough locked in a moment of near-silence. An approach, a stutter, a kick. And there Ike Ugbo’s season hit it’s lowest point.
Had he scored the penalty handed to him by captain Barry Bannan to all-but secure Sheffield Wednesday a 2-0 half-time lead against Millwall on January 4, the winds of momentum may well have blown in a very different direction. As it happened, he left the field ashen-faced and emotional soon afterwards. There’s no getting away from the fact it’s been a painful campaign for the 26-year-old striker. There have been other moments.
There’s no doubting Ike Ugbo’s ability. A product of the star-laden Chelsea academy, his contribution to Wednesday’s status as a Championship side this season was as great as that of any other player, stepping into a side struggling for goals last January and grabbing seven – all of which contributed to wins. Without his contribution, logic suggests the Owls would not only have been relegated, but that they would have been relegated in sorry fashion. He’s a very talented footballer with a proven ability to score important goals at this level.
Now, he has played only seven minutes of football since the end of March and in a couple of weeks it may well be that he has gone over a year without a Championship goal. All with any vested interest in Sheffield Wednesday will hope that a goal comes before that point; you feel the support from the stands whenever he steps out onto the field. Despite the disappointment of his struggle, the feeling is that the wider club is very much behind him and hoping for that moment of release. It stands as one of the final wishes on a close to the season that is, at current, meandering to a close.
“I wish for him to score this season and then he goes with a positive feeling out of the season and can build it up,” Wednesday boss Danny Röhl told The Star. “I know in a player’s mind it is sometimes wanting to end a season and then they can restart and reset. But he can do this (score) and we can help him do this in the next weeks. First he has to get a strong position in the squad and if he does this then hopefully can train in a way he can come on and create a momentum.
“I still believe in him. There is no doubt because of the goals he scored last season and such an impact. You cannot lose this immediately.”
An long wait and a Championship alternative
In a year of agonising sliding doors moments – the Millwall penalty miss is not the only one – there’s another world in which Ugbo is wearing stripes of a different colour. The Star revealed interest from Sunderland as the summer-long effort to get him to Wednesday dragged on and on. In the final weeks of that saga, it’s understood the Black Cats emerged with an oven-ready deal and that had the Canada international nodded in the direction of the North East, it could have been wrapped up fairly quickly.
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He instead stood firm on his belief in Wednesday, drawn in by the fan base and the injection of possibility brought about by that historic end to the 2023/24 campaign. Having been set out alongside the likes of Ian Poveda and James Beadle as the highest of Röhl’s immediate targets soon after the Sunderland survival mission, the dragging of the deal was a source of frustration; selling club Troyes handing negotiations over to their owners at the City Group who had deals to complete elsewhere, initial efforts to delay a deal to inflate his price in a Copa America tournament he eventually missed out on partly due to an ankle knock.
Sat in limbo, Ugbo’s pre-season was spent training with Manchester City’s kids for the most part. A training programme was set out but understandably, he wasn’t the central focus of sessions. He arrived back in South Yorkshire a week into August, unveiled in memorable fashion as the clock struck 5pm on a Röhl press conference. Some weeks before it was signed and sealed, there was an eagerness from those involved to get it done – not least Ugbo himself. And yet it dragged, with the Owls boss warning supporters it would take some weeks for him to sharpen-up.
“In the summer he did not have a normal pre-season, there was a question mark and this was not helpful for him,” Röhl said last week. “Then there was the moment against Millwall that could have been a turnaround and maybe we wouldn’t be talking about this now. This is football, it happens. The group have helped him and the most important key is that he helps himself. You cannot expect or demand or wait for someone to help you. He must demand himself to come out of this.”
So what next for Ike Ugbo?
It’s been the conversation since, well, September; Ike Ugbo needs a goal. As detailed by Röhl, avoiding the ignominy of a goalless league season is the first and foremost hope. He’s down the pecking order and what chances he’ll get to do that is as of yet unknown as Wednesday seek to climb out of their second-half malaise and end the campaign with positivity.
That the German boss has relented to routinely rotate the twin tower duo of Michael Smith and Callum Paterson ahead of the likes of Ugbo and Jamal Lowe has been telling and although it’s clear chances will be given to some of the more fringe players in the remaining four games, the Owls boss has been clear; he will not ‘give presents’. Opportunities must be earned.
