Sheffield Wednesday have had a horrible season, both on and off the pitch.

Wednesday were already facing an uphill battle to stay in the Championship after a turbulent summer under former owner Dejphon Chansiri, but their challenge became nearly impossible after losing 18 points.

With relegation to League One all but confirmed, Owls fans have been expecting for encouraging news on the takeover front to provide some hope for next season, but the club is still in administration more than three months after Chansiri’s departure.

The club’s administrators have selected James Bord’s consortium as the preferred bidder, and the EFL is currently deciding whether to approve the transaction, but that process is expected to take some time due to worries over their financial source.

If Bord is granted the go-ahead to acquire Wednesday, he will face a difficult task in rebuilding the club in the third tier, with one of the first decisions he would have to make at Hillsborough being whether to keep manager Henrik Pedersen.

Henrik Pedersen is under increasing pressure due to Sheffield Wednesday’s terrible results.

It was always going to be a difficult season for Wednesday, but even the most pessimistic fans may be surprised by how badly they’ve suffered.

The Owls had only one win this season, a 2-0 triumph over Portsmouth in mid-September, and they are now on a 24-game winless streak in the league, breaking the previous club record of 20 matches.

If that wasn’t terrible enough for the long-suffering Wednesday fans, they’ve lost their last seven Championship games and haven’t scored a single goal in their last nine games in all competitions, with Pedersen’s men last scoring on Boxing Day.

The Owls are currently at the bottom of the standings with minus seven points, and they are 39 points from safety with only 16 games remaining, suggesting that relegation could be confirmed by the end of the month.

In fact, if they lose to Swansea City and Millwall in their next two games, Wednesday’s fate could be confirmed by Steel City rivals Sheffield United if they lose at Bramall Lane on February 22nd, depending on how Blackburn Rovers and West Bromwich Albion perform in the coming weeks.

With many Owls fans eager to see the end of this season, attention has already gone to next season, and Pedersen’s recent performance has spurred debate about whether he should be allowed to remain in charge in League One.

James Bord must make a hard Henrik Pedersen call if he seals the Sheffield Wednesday acquisition.

It is difficult to overstate the terrible circumstances that Pedersen has faced at Wednesday this season, and it could be claimed that no manager in Championship history has ever inherited a worse scenario.

The Owls lost 45 of their 60 league goals from last season due to a mass exodus in the summer that saw the likes of Anthony Musaba, Djeidi Gassama, Callum Paterson, Josh Windass, and Michael Smith leave, leaving Pedersen with a threadbare squad largely made up of young players lacking the quality required to compete in the second tier.

Pedersen’s options have been dwindling throughout the season as many of the squad’s remaining members have suffered injuries, and he was dealt two major blows in the January transfer window when he lost long-serving captain Barry Bannan and talented striker Bailey Cadamarteri to Millwall and Wrexham, respectively.

In addition to the on-field issues, Pedersen has had to deal with ongoing ownership uncertainty, and he has earned a lot of respect for the way he has conducted himself since taking over at Hillsborough, with the Dane maintaining an admirable level of positivity and optimism in a situation that many would have given up on long ago.

However, while there are numerous mitigating factors, Pedersen’s record of one win in 34 games does not make for encouraging reading, and there is little evidence to indicate he is the right man to lead a prospective League One promotion campaign next season.

Wednesday fans have been increasingly irritated with Pedersen’s negative tactics in recent weeks, particularly his insistence on fielding a back three despite his team having nothing to lose at this point and the results being essentially unimportant.

Pedersen’s in-game management and frequent late use of substitutes have also been criticized, though the lack of options on the bench severely limits his ability to make impactful changes, and with the Owls currently on a nine-game goal drought, it appears he has been unable to find the answers to end the streak.

Bord made a managerial change at Scottish club Dunfermline Athletic just two months after taking over last year, and he played a significant role in the controversial decision to replace Chris Wilder with Ruben Selles while working as an advisor at Sheffield United, so he is not afraid to make tough decisions.

Bord is known to be eager to implement a data-driven approach and build a squad full of young talent, and he may see Pedersen as the ideal candidate to oversee the rebuild, especially given how he has developed players such as Gabriel Otegbayo, Harry Amass, Sean Fusire, Jarvis Thornton, Charlie McNeill, and George Brown this season.

However, Wednesday will be expected to compete for an immediate return to the Championship next season, and with Pedersen’s current win percentage of only 2.94%, keeping him beyond the summer would be too risky.