Danny Rohl issues claim on what Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United deserved from Steel City derby | OneFootball

The Owls' winless run against their cross-city rivals was extended on Sunday.

Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl believes that neither his side nor Sunday's opposition, Sheffield United, did enough to rightfully win the Steel City derby.

No matter what the state of the league is or either team's form, rivalry matches are usually the most competitive games on the calendar. The added pressure of the bragging rights at stake tends to even the playing field in these highly anticipated contests.

That is exactly what played out this weekend when the two bitter Sheffield rivals met each other at Bramall Lane for the first time since March 2019. Wednesday were looking to set their own recent record in the derby straight; they hadn't beaten the Blades since 2012. Unfortunately for them, they didn't manage to end their winless streak against United.

There was only one shot on target in the game, but a close-range effort from Tyrese Campbell not long into the second half was all that was needed to put daylight between the two teams and hand United all three points. The result puts them up to second in the Championship, while the Owls are only three points above the drop zone.

Danny Rohl believes no team deserved to win the Steel City derby

The tightness of the game is bared out by the stats. Not only were there minimal efforts on goal, but both teams struggled to create any openings for themselves at all.

Based on what he saw in the game, Wednesday's young manager felt that a draw would have been the fair result.

After the end of the game, Rohl told The Star: "It’s a tough one. No team deserved to win today, for me it was a draw. No shots on target, also a moment with Musaba. Both teams fought and tried, but neither team was really calm on the ball, there were mistakes in both directions, and in the end, you would take the draw.

"In one moment they win this game and maybe this is the difference between being at the top or in the middle of the table."

The point in the game when the Owls were most threatening was when they made their second-half substitutions. Djeidi Gassama, Michael Smith, and Anthony Musaba all made impacts off the bench. Some were more short-lived than others, and even with the slight change in momentum that they provided, it wasn't enough to test Michael Cooper in the United net.

"After the changes, we brought more and more attacking players on," added the Owls' boss. "We felt we could hurt them and find the spaces, we were better on the ball and created some more. But at the end the last 10 or 15 minutes, it was all second balls, fouls, there was no rhythm in the game. The momentum dropped down again.

"I cannot say my team didn’t try everything, but it was not necessary to lose today."

Sheffield Wednesday have a bit of soul-searching to do over this international break

This feeling of going into a two-week break off the back of some disappointing results will not be an unfamiliar one for Rohl and his players. The first international break of the season came after a run of three straight defeats in which they conceded nine goals and failed to score.

It's not as bad now, with the Norwich City win last Tuesday breaking up the tough defeats against Watford and the Blades, but the German still won't be happy with how things are going.

He is yet to get this team playing in a consistent way, week-in, week-out, that's going to continually get them points, which is very surprising given what he did with what was a worse group of players at the end of last season.

The time that Rohl has to mull over things could be a bit of a blessing, though, if he lands on something effective ahead of Wednesday's busiest period of the season, in December.