Can Sheffield Wednesday mount a challenge for promotion from the Championship?

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2nd May 2010 – a game which few fans in attendance at Hillsborough will ever forget. Sheffield Wednesday went into the last game of the 2009/10 campaign knowing that nothing but victory could save them from the horror of relegation. Fail, and their opponents; Crystal Palace, would survive in their place. The Eagles twice took the lead before Wednesday hit back and although Darren Purse’s 87th minute equaliser offered the majority of Hillsborough hope of a miracle, Palace just about held on and Sheffield Wednesday were relegated to League One. Nearly six years on though, the club once again find themselves in the Championship and look to be a completely different outfit.

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The turnaround of the club was far from instantaneous, but now in their fourth season back in the Championship, the Sheffield Wednesday could be looking to make that next step and return to the Premier League. The key to their so far fantastic season to date; one which has led them to sixth in the league, starts at the very top of the club hierarchy. Dejphon Chansiri bought the club from former owner Milan Mandaric for £37.5 million in the 2014/15 season, and set his sights on promotion, by 2017. Since the takeover, change on the field has been huge, but just how much has this impacted the team’s fortunes?

The team have now found way to earn results on a more consistent basis under Carlos Carvalhal, who took over as first-team coach after the departure of popular figure Stuart Gray. Carvalhal’s career as a manager has spread over 15 clubs; most notably including Besiktas, but with no experience in English football, his arrival at Hillsborough left mixed opinions with the fans. Some firmly believed that it was too much of a risk for the club to take at the time.

However, he has so far transformed a club that had previously found itself in mid-table mediocrity to one that no team fancies playing. He has overseen an overhaul of players, with 13 permanent signings coming in and 15 going the other way, allowing him to stamp his identity into the squad from the off.

Carvalhal shares an appetite with the Wednesday fans for fast aggressive football that normally results in lots of goal-mouth action, but can also come at a price. After 30 games, the club have scored 45 goals in the league, with only Burnley scoring more (48). Alongside this however, the Yorkshire side have conceded 33, a tally which is by no means disastrous but is surely a concern that needs to be addressed if promotion becomes a reality.

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However, Wednesday’s incredible 3-0 victory over Arsenal in the Capital One Cup surely sent out a strong message to the rest of the Championship, and perhaps even the rest of England too. It was a clinical performance, with The Owls barely having the ball yet carved out numerous opportunities on goal against a team hoping to be crowned as the Premier League champions.

The team efforts to adapt to different opponents such as Arsenal has inspired them to climb high up the table, and the team that Carvalhal has assembled must take much of the credit. He has brought in players such as Gary Hooper, a man who has Premier League experience with Norwich, as well as featuring in the Champions League games with Celtic. But more impressively, Carvalhal has helped other individual players step up their game to another level.

Kieran Lee; the versatile man who signed from Oldham Athletic, initially struggled to nail down a place in the squad when he first joined in 2012. Now he has made more appearances for the first team than anyone else this season, and has become an integral part to the spine of the Owls line up. He is the perfect example to others that it’s not always the ‘big name’ players that win you games.

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So the team’s there, the manager too, and they are backed by a wealthy chairman who has also put to work the development of the clubs training facilities. They are a big, big name in English football, and have always maintained that feel, whatever division they may have been in.

The fans have been crucial to this; the average attendances have roughly stayed the same at home over the years, and they’re impeccable away support has never gone away. With them, the club will look right at home in the Premier League. Their constant belief and hope makes a huge difference.

There’s still a lot of work to be done. For all the good they have done this season, a shock exit from the FA Cup against struggling League 1 side Shrewsbury Town, highlighted the complacency from the team that must be eliminated if they are to mount a serious challenge in the play-offs.

Similar results have leaked in their league form at times, most notably, defeats to MK Dons and Charlton, where they failed to make any meaningful impact in the games, lacking in the high intensity football fans have come to expect.

However, it’s easy to nit-pick, and it would be unfair to expect the team to successfully press and press for 90 minutes every week. The club has finally turned a corner. League 1 seems a distant memory and, with their 150 year anniversary coming up in 2017, a new era may be setting in the blue and white half of Sheffield.

Featured Image: All rights reserved by Kurt Fairhurst