Xisco Munoz vows to fight ‘until my last second’ at Sheffield Wednesday

Xisco Munoz apologised to Sheffield Wednesday’s supporters and said he would give it “until my last second” after a 1-0 defeat at West Brom left the Sky Bet Championship’s bottom team with the worst start in their history.

John Swift’s 13th-minute goal left the Owls with an eighth loss from the first 10 games of the Sky Bet Championship season, and they are already seven points adrift of the safety line.

Manager Munoz, 43, who led Watford to the Premier League in 2020-21, has taken just two points all season and none have come outside Yorkshire. Wednesday are also without a goal in 312 minutes of football.

“I understand the fans and I can only say sorry because it’s tough for everybody,” said the Spaniard.

“But as a manager, I can say we will continue until my last second.

“This is my life and I try to give my best to my players until my last minute.”

Munoz suggested he is running out of options after trying different permutations.

“We tried to change the formation and the players – I have used 24 or 25 players this season,” he added.

“We can play 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2 but right now, we’re not finding the solutions.”

Munoz insisted he will keep persevering trying to find a winning formula.

“We need to continue trying to find what is better for us, we need to find which players we can use for the next game, what can hurt the opponent and how we can make better of these situations,” added the Spaniard.

“We played against a difficult style and a good team but the difference was nothing.”

West Brom made it five games unbeaten, during which they have kept four clean sheets and climbed to fifth.

Swift lashed home the only goal from six yards after Darnell Furlong played the ball down the right, Akin Famewo missed the chance to cut it out and Jed Wallace crossed low.

But just after the goal, Wednesday’s Juan Delgado missed Ashley Fletcher’s cross from point-blank range, then Tyreeq Bakinson’s curling shot was clawed away by goalkeeper Alex Palmer.

West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan saluted match-winner Swift, who scored his fifth goal of the season.

“When a player of his quality is mentally ready to compete he can be the difference,” he said.

Corberan admitted Albion found it hard going to find more goals.

“You change the feeling and change the game when you score from the opportunities you have,” he said.

“It was difficult to combat them from the set-pieces because they had a very physical team and when we won the second balls in the set-pieces, we couldn’t score the second goal to change the game.

“After one second ball and one set-piece, it led to two big opportunities that led Alex (Palmer) to achieve the clean sheet and the three points.”