Paddy Jones was one of the panellists on the latest edition of the Owls Americast podcast and during the show, he shared his reaction to Tony Pulis’ comments on Keiren Westwood in his first press conference as Sheffield Wednesday manager which took place earlier this week.
Westwood had been frozen out under previous Owls boss Garry Monk. The 36-year-old goalkeeper wasn’t even registered in the Owls’ Championship squad this season and his last appearance for the Yorkshire club came just under one full year ago, in November 2019.
However, during his first press conference as Sheffield Wednesday manager, Pulis indicated that new life may be breathed into Westwood’s Owls career, with the 62-year-old saying of the former Republic of Ireland international: (15:18) “I think he is one of the best goalkeepers in the Championship. If he was available, I would be looking for him to be playing.”
In reaction to these comments, Jones shared that he thinks this was an example of Pulis “putting a stake in the ground” and the podcaster cast some doubt on both Cameron Dawson’s and Joe Wildsmith’s respective futures, saying:
“I think there’s going to be a couple of obvious winners and losers out of the old Pulis system. Firstly, it sounds like Westwood’s his first-choice goalkeeper – apparently, Dawson and Wildsmith are already out the door. That, I thought, was an unbelievable take as soon as he walks through the door.
“I don’t think this was a kind of paying lip service to bring his confidence up – he’s putting a stake in the ground, saying, ‘Westwood’s my first-choice goalkeeper.’ That’s how much he rates Dawson and Wildsmith.”
Do you think Pulis views Westwood as his first-choice goalkeeper?
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TIF Thoughts on what Jones had to say about Pulis’ comments on Westwood…
Dawson played eight and Wildsmith played three of Wednesday’s 11 Championship games so far this season, but given that Pulis made a point of praising Westwood in his press conference earlier this week and as the Owls have since registered the 36-year-old ‘keeper for the Championship, perhaps Jones is right in saying that the new Wednesday boss views Westwood as his first-choice stopper.
However, Pulis only arrived at Hillsborough last Friday and he won’t have spent too much time with any of his goalkeepers as of yet, so with that in mind, as well as the fact that Westwood has been out of action for almost a full year, could the 62-year-old manager have jumped the gun by indicating that the £180k-rated man is his first choice so soon?
While the Owls are sitting in the relegation zone at present, they have conceded only 10 goals, which is a lower number of goals than all but six other second-tier sides have conceded so far this term so it may be fair to say that the club wasn’t exactly leaking goals with either Dawson or Wildsmith between the sticks and so it will be interesting to see if Westwood performs well under Pulis should he return to action under the new boss, or if he fails to live up to Pulis’ expectations and one of Dawson or Wildsmith ultimately ends up returning to the starting XI.