Sheffield Wednesday

OPINION: Sheffield Wednesday will be back in the promotion race and here’s why

I’ll admit it, last Saturday’s play off final still hurts. It’ll probably hurt throughout the summer too.

After all, my beloved Sheffield Wednesday were just ninety minutes away from reaching the Premier League, something I had never experience since becoming a fan.

Yet in the end we didn’t really show up and Hull beat us, leaving us to stew in the Championship for another year.

To try and get over that pain, I’ve been trying to give myself hope that we will be back next season and that it will be 2017 that the Owls return to the Premier League. And after considering many options, I think I’ve convinced myself that Wednesday will be in a promotion battle next season.

Firstly, we have a very solid base to build from. The majority of the squad are either young or in their peak, meaning there aren’t many players that we would expect to tail off in terms of quality next season. The only player pushing towards retirement age is Glenn Loovens, and he’s probably going to shift to more of a squad role next season anyway.

And that squad should stay pretty much intact too. Apart from Keiren Westwood who’s being tracked by Middlesbrough, there isn’t much speculation right now saying that players will leave. And that’s a decent way to start. Westwood would be a huge blow to lose yes, but Joe Wildsmith may be ready to step up from the academy and there’s always the transfer market. And by keeping the likes of Forestieri and Bannan who are unlikely to attract interest because of their contract situations, the core of the side will remain in place.

That’s probably not going to happen with some of their promotion rivals. Newcastle United and Aston Villa are pretty much doing a fire sale to get their wage budget in tact while Norwich City look set to lose their lively winger Nathan Redmond to Stoke City. Also Lewis Dunk could be leaving Brighton and George Thorne has been linked to constant moves away from Derby County, though his injury status may keep him at the iPro Stadium.

This means that while Wednesday keep the bulk of their squad, their rivals will be depleted and have to find replacements which yes, could end up better then their current players but may also end up worse. Right now, who knows?

And yes, there are several weaknesses that need to be addressed in the Wednesday squad right now. Saturday’s play off final showed we need some truly top quality wingers in order to stretch the play and take some attention away from Forestieri who was marked out of the game. I’m also not a fan of our full back situation and think that Loovens does need replacing.

But who would you trust more then Carvalhal to sort these problems? I’ll admit that his transfer record isn’t that stellar, who else remembers the wonder of Daryl Lachman, but he’s been able to bring in a number of top quality players we didn’t even consider options last summer and he can definitely do that again.

I do suppose that there could be a few more teams to contend with at the top of the table. Birmingham City will probably be in the play off race again if they keep their players and I imagine that Fulham will be a solid shout if their head coach Slavisa Jokanovic gets to truly reshape the squad. But a lot of those potential rivals have so many question marks. Many have new managers who yes, could fire the teams up to new heights or could end up a complete disaster. The only teams currently outside the top six that I definitely think will be involved with the top six fight are QPR and Brentford, and even then I have some doubts.

So if we can build on the successful base with some top quality signings, I really think that Sheffield Wednesday will be in the automatic promotion race. I think our rivals could end up weaker than last year and we grow stronger. So yes, that play off final will carry on to hurt. But that hurt will soon go away next season.

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