Brighter future, but a dark winter still looms for Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday have been deduced 12 points for entering administration

As everyone connected with Sheffield Wednesday woke on Sunday following their extra hour's sleep after the clocks went back, they were faced with two contrasting realities.

Following the events of Friday, when the club was placed into administration, the worst days of Dejphon Chansiri's increasingly desperate ownership were ended.

That was a victory for the club's long-suffering supporters, who have skipped pies and pints in protest, waved black-and-gold scarves and boycotted home matches as players and club staff went unpaid or had wages delayed for months on end.

But with a 12-point deduction imposed by the English Football League, the Owls' position in the Championship is dire - and magnified by the 2-1 home defeat by Oxford United on Saturday.

They sit bottom, on minus six points, now 16 points from safety, and while there might still be 102 points to play for as manager Henrik Pedersen pointed out, a team that has won only one out of 12 needs to win at least five games to just gain parity.

So while Wednesday fans can dream of a bright future, they must go through the long, dark days of winter first.

Losing to Oxford was a fourth defeat on the spin and a sixth from seven home games, in which they have only scored two goals.

The football romantics would have imagined a rejuvenated Wednesday being swept to an emotional victory, but that was not to be.

A streetwise operator like Oxford head coach Gary Rowett had his team quickly out of the blocks and before the Owls could stage a second-half revival, the U's were two up and more than halfway to the three points.

Looking at the teams immediately around them in the table - Norwich City, Southampton, neighbours Sheffield United - all have deeper squads and significant investment behind them.

Somehow, Wednesday, this committed but threadbare group, need to overhaul three teams to avoid League One football next season in what would be an act of football escapology.

They need greater numbers and more quality, and while the administrators mentioned potential interest in buying the club, the clock is ticking and it would need unusual haste for a takeover to be completed in time for Wednesday to bring in reinforcements during the January transfer window.

Fans have been back in the club shop buying merchandise in the days since administration was announced

Hillsborough remains one of the last old-school venues in English football. A little frayed around the edges, it had not seen much life this season until Saturday.

A season's best crowd of 27,261 assembled after their boycott was hastily called off, and they returned in numbers. Long-serving defender Liam Palmer described it as having a "proper matchday feel" again.

There was a palpable uplift in mood around the city and near the ground as fans did not so much trudge towards the match as walk in purposefully, ready to support their players and their club again.

Fans were desperate to resume classic pre-match rituals of a drink in the bars around the ground, some of which had been shut for previous games, while other supporters could end a boycott which had meant missing a Hillsborough fixture for the first time in decades – something which was previously almost unthinkable to them.

Manager Pedersen has been a source of unrelenting positivity in trying circumstances and he had a beaming smile at kick-off as he turned to take in the three sides of the ground filled with fans booming out 'Hi Ho Sheffield Wednesday'.

He said later: "You could feel the atmosphere was different.

"It was a clean atmosphere, a positive atmosphere, a hopeful atmosphere. There was more Sheffield Wednesday in it and it was fantastic.

"Everyone knows it's a difficult situation and there will be some tough months. We need the fans the whole way and this relationship has to be top until the end of the season, because we need top, top support."

'Huge potential and massive fanbase'

One thing that has been underlined in bold in the past few weeks and months, and at other stricken clubs before, is that a club is nothing without its loyal supporters.

And Wednesday have reminded everyone that while they are struggling badly in playing terms, they remain a grand name of English football, dating all the way back to the Wednesday when they were first formed in 1867.

It is that sense of history and tradition which has kept them going, but also offers something for the future too - for potential investors in a club in a big football-mad city.

"It's normally very grim news to go into administration," said lifelong fan Matt Barnes. "But it might be the best news we've had in a long time.

"It has been three or four years of living with an owner who has run the club really badly and has not or could not invest.

"Of course, there is the 12-point deduction and now certain relegation, but we were going down anyway.

"Now hopefully someone can come in and build a squad capable of competing in League One in 2026/27 as we still have huge potential and a massive fanbase."

Since his debut in 2010, Liam Palmer has had two promotions and one relegation with Sheffield Wednesday

'A little light of positivity'

For Palmer, the past few months have been a personal and professional challenge.

The Scotland defender, who has only known Wednesday as a permanent club, with close to 500 appearances, watched on "powerless" as good friends exercised their right to leave, exasperated by unpaid wages and the direction of travel.

But as the squad's Professional Footballers' Association representative, the 34-year-old has been left to deal with awkward questions from worried players for which he has rarely had the answer.

Palmer and club captain Barry Bannan managed to arrange a Zoom conversation with Chansiri in the summer, hoping for some clarity but receiving none.

"The owner maintained that he was doing his best, but we were asking questions that ultimately he didn't have the answers for," said Palmer.

"But we felt that we had to ask them on behalf of the players.

"It would have been lovely to hear 'you are going to get paid on this time and the money was going to come', but he didn't have the answers. But I would rather have had that answer than not asked him at all."

The match with Middlesbrough proved to be one of the lowest points of his career, played out in front of virtually empty home stands, reminiscent of the depressing times of Covid when playing football felt more like a job than at any other time.

And having the players and fans united again at Hillsborough at least offers Palmer hope for the remainder of what will continue to be a challenging season.

"Football is dead without the fans, and for me Wednesday night was tough," he said.

"It took me back to that Covid season, there was an emptiness around where everything was at.

"So this has just stoked the fire a little bit within the group to use that little light of positivity to get us through the next few weeks and months."