Wednesdays with Brewer, part 17

This is Wednesdays with Brewer, a Road to Glory save on EA Sports FC 24 that follows in the footsteps of last year’s Yellow and Blue Crusade. WRB’s Brewer takes the dual role of author and manager of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club in an attempt to rebuild one of the oldest football clubs in English history … and document the journey from beginning to end.

August-October 2026

Off the field

Although my focus remained on the transfer front, I still had some work to do in the youth academy. August saw three new prospects arrive: attacking midfielder Mason Kelly, left winger Alex Young and striker Freddie Hood. Young was the latest in a growing list of star winger prospects in our youth program — he entered the academy as the second-highest rated player under contract, behind only right winger Zachary Harris. Young and Harris will hopefully follow in the footsteps of right winger Mark Mason and left winger Lance Gardner, youth academy grads who look poised for a big role in the future.

Because of the glut of talent on the wing, I released Ed Arnold and Henry Poole. Neither guy was on the same level as Young and Harris, nor did they have the potential that Young, Harris, Mason or Gardner have. There was really no point in keeping them at the club anymore.

With only a couple weeks left before the summer transfer window closed, my energy needed to go right back to the senior team. Not long after I listed left back Alex Cochrane for transfer, I reached out to Crystal Palace to discuss a deal for Cochrane’s replacement, Rico Henry. Palace really pushed us in negotiations, eventually agreeing to a $15.5 million transfer fee. Discussions with Henry and his agent were even more difficult, with the player asking for a significant pay raise over his current wage — he was on $49,000 a week at Palace and wanted us to pay him a weekly wage of nearly $75,000. He’s not good enough to make such demands so I backed out.

Leeds United came to us a lowball offer of $19.3 million for central midfielder Leighton Clarkson. Despite presenting a couple different counter offers to the folks at Leeds, they wouldn’t raise their offer at all. Take-it-or-leave-it offers rarely sit well with me and this was no different. I held firm on our asking price (no less than $25 million) and Leeds walked away.

A couple days later, we accepted an $18 million offer from Brighton and Hove Albion for center back Gabriel Osho. That money effectively paid for the transfer of Fulham center back Calvin Bassey, who came to us from west London for a fee of $17 million. Bassey was on a pretty big pay packet at Fulham and we needed to make him our highest-paid player in order to agree to terms. The money was worth it because our defense was terrible last year and I think his work rate and physicality are going to bring some life to our back line.

After a couple offers I deemed unacceptable, Olympique Marseille came through with a $19.5 million transfer offer for left back Alex Cochrane. Negotiations with club and player were both simple and Cochrane sealed his move to France. Earlier this month, Cochrane reached out to me to tell me he was surprised, but not upset, that he was transfer listed. I guess this was an uncoupling that was meant to be.

Once again, I turned our profit around and invested in an upgrade at the position. This time, it was OGC Nice left back Ryan Sessegnon who returned to the Premier League (he used to play for Tottenham) on a deal that cost us $23 million. Sessegnon quickly usurped Bassey as the highest-paid player at the club, but shelling out cash is part of doing business with good players.

Once the transfer window closed on Sept. 1, I could take a breath and spend some time looking at the youth program.

September was more about departures than additions. Our only signing was right winger Peter Evans, who will provide some competition for highly regarded prospect Zachary Harris. Harris remains the best player in our youth program, at least in terms of current overall rating.

Defensive midfielder Ezra Baldwin and right back Chris Mensah moved on from the club. The defensive midfielder position is becoming increasingly obsolete in my formation and keeping a prospect at that position makes little sense. For that same reason, Prince Agyemang was moved to center back to allow him a chance to make an impact for us. Mensah, on the other hand, had recently turned 18 and didn’t look capable of contributing to our senior team any time soon. He’s also pretty slow for a fullback, which is not going to work for me.

I finished my work in the academy by signing right winger Charlie Ward, striker Daniel Parkin and right winger Harley Yates. Thanks to the glut of winger prospects we have in the building, I released Peter Evans and will likely be looking to released either Yates or Ward in the near future if they show any signs of slipping in their development.

Parkin’s arrival made it three strikers in our academy so Freddie Hood got the axe. Hood was the worst player of the three and also had the lowest overall potential.

With all that behind us, let get to some damn football matches!

Match results

Matchday 1: Sheffield Wednesday 2, Everton 0
Doyle 26', 44'

Season-opening jitters must have hit both teams pretty hard because the first 25 minutes of this game were not high in quality. The play wasn’t necessarily bad, per se, it was just really boring. Neither team managed much of anything in the attacking department, with each side forcing just a single shot on net.

Everton’s lone first-half attempt on goal came from a difficult angle and sailed well over the crossbar, never troubling goalkeeper Mark Travers. Our opening shot, a first-time strike from new central midfielder Tommy Doyle, also came from a tough angle. Doyle’s shot, which produced all of 0.1 xG (in other words, it goes in only 10 percent of the time) beat Everton keeper Samuel Fry. The goal definitely came against the run of play, but it’s a lead and I wasn’t about to ask questions.

Another new signing, center back Calvin Bassey, made an incredible individual effort to shut down a golden scoring chance for the visitors just before halftime. Doyle completely botched a pass that left Everton’s Garang Kuol running free on goal from the midfield stripe. Bassey never quit, sprinting nearly 50 yards to cut Kuol off at the last possible moment. What a play that was.

Doyle bagged his brace moments later when striker Daryl Dike found him running free through the center of the attacking area. Doyle struck the ball first time from just inside the 18-yard box, firing a low shot that Fry could not stop before it blistered the back of the net.

The second half was relatively quiet. Dike and Leighton Clarkson, who had come on as a sub for Josh Dasilva, both had really good chances denied by Fry. Both shots were taken in close range, but it didn’t matter to the Toffees’ keeper. Fry did his part keeping us off the scoreboard in the second half, but our defense did the same and we walked away with a good win in our season opener.

Doyle and Bassey really impressed me in their debut match with the club. We also played very well in the midfield, which led to a little more cohesion on defense. It’s early days, and we did it against a newly promoted side, but we’re off to a good start.

Other results
Aug. 22: L 0–1 v. Leicester City
Aug. 26: W 1–0 v. Queens Park Rangers (Carabao Cup)
Aug. 29: W 3–0 v. Southampton
Sept. 5: L 1–3 v. Newcastle United
Sept. 19: W 2–0 v. West Ham United
Sept. 26: L 1–3 v. Manchester City
Sept. 30: W 2–0 v. Fulham (Carabao Cup)

Matchday 7: Sheffield Wednesday 1, Arsenal 1
Azeez 28'
O’Hare 53'

I was really happy with the way we opened this match. Our high press gave the Gunners a lot of trouble and led to two opportunities that goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale did well to keep out of the back of the net.

After a scare from Arsenal 20 minutes in, they broke us open a few minutes later with some smooth one-touch passing that eventually led to Miguel Azeez calmly putting the ball past goalkeeper Mark Travers to give the home side a 1–0 advantage. Sometimes you just get outclassed and there really wasn’t much we could do to stop them from scoring.

That goal really set us back, as we spent the remainder of the first half on the back foot. We could barely get the ball out of our own half of the pitch, managing only a single shot on goal after the Gunners took the lead. A lot needed to change in the second half if we were going to pull ourselves back into this contest.

I don’t know that we played much differently coming out of the halftime break, but less than 10 minutes into the second half, we drew level. Central midfielder Tommy Doyle made an interception near the midfield stripe and immediately distributed the ball forward to his midfield partner, Josh Dasilva. In turn, Dasilva quickly sent left winger Michael Johnston on a run toward goal. Johnston kind of ran out of room near the six-yard box and sent a low-quality shot toward Ramsdale, who managed to get his left foot to the ball. That wasn’t enough to end the threat, however, as a charging Callum O’Hare quickly got on the end of the parry and shot into an empty net to even the match.

Much like Arsenal did after their goal, we looked like the better team after putting ourselves on the scoreboard. That doesn’t mean there weren’t chances for the Gunners — Travers had to make two spectacular saves with about 20 minutes left before the full-time whistle. We surely would have lost without Travers’ individual effort, but the same can be said about Arsenal. Were it not for Ramsdale’s five second-half saves, including two Daryl Dike chances that looked like surefire winners, the home side would have walked away with nothing on this day.

A draw at the Emirates is a good result, but it feels like we should have left north London with all three points.

Other results
Oct. 11: W 1–0 v. Burnley
Oct. 24: W 3–2 v. Liverpool

Wrap up

I’m not really sure how we could have ended October on a higher note than going into Anfield and handing league leaders Liverpool their first loss of the season. That win moved us up to 16 points on the season, good enough for fifth in the Premier League standings.

We’ve already played all five of the other clubs in the top six and fared pretty well, taking wins from Liverpool (first) and West Ham (third), drawing Arsenal (fourth), and losing to Manchester City (second) and Newcastle United (sixth). There’s been a lot of balance and consistency to our performances thus far, two concepts I have hammered on since I started managing this club.

The challenge, of course, is playing balanced and consistent football for 38 Premier League matches. We’ve done it for nine. I’m happy with how we’ve started the season, and I’m cautiously optimistic about our chances in the league, but as last spring showed us, the wheels can fall off in a hurry.