Darren Moore tastes defeat in first game in charge of Owls

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Sheffield Wednesday fell to a late defeat against Rotherham United in Darren Moore’s first game in charge.

The new boss wouldn’t have envisioned that taking the Sheffield Wednesday job would be an easy task but maybe he didn’t realise how tough of a job it would be to turn around the fortunes of the Yorkshire side.

Moore took the Wednesday job after having a great season with Doncaster in EFL League One as he left Rovers inside the Play-Off places to join a Sheffield Wednesday side fighting for their lives to stay in the Championship.

Questions may well have been asked of the ex-West Brom manager as to why he left what would seem to be a comfortable job with a team currently flying in their respective division for a club that are struggling both on and off the pitch.

The 46-year-old stamped his authority on the team straight away as he implemented a 4-2-3-1 formation against Rotherham yesterday evening, a system that gave him a lot of success at Doncaster this season rather than the 3-5-2 formation that the Owls had been playing in previous weeks.

The Wednesday manager had a tough task on his hands for his first game, taking on a Rotherham side who have been difficult to beat for the majority of the season up until the past few weeks and it would have been a great game to get his Sheffield Wednesday managerial career kicked off with a win but this wouldn’t be the case.

Rotherham took the lead early through Michael Smith, who was also given his marching orders early in the second-half.

The Owls capitalised and managed to force an equaliser through Matthew Olosunde’s own goal but the hosts would end up being victims of their own naivety.

A corner in the last minute of stoppage time was cleared and with very few players back, Freddie Ladapo drove at the Wednesday defence and rifled the ball into the far corner to give Rotherham the spoils.

The games don’t get much easier for the newly-appointed manager either as they take on Reading and Norwich in their next two outings, two teams eyeing promotion to the Premier League.

A less than ideal result for Moore in his first game in charge and with seven points to make up on the likes of Birmingham and Coventry, the former Doncaster manager has his work cut out to keep his side in the league and not get relegated out of the league for the first time since the 2009/10 season.

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