With Sheffield Wednesday’s outside Play-Off promotion hopes largely brought to an end following our defeat last weekend to Leeds United, whilst it remains mathematically possible as long as we get back to winning ways and results elsewhere go our way, few fans would now be putting money on it.
It was a good, and entirely unexpected late surge following the February arrival of new manager Steve Bruce so nobody will be too downhearted about things, but it does mean now we end the current campaign without pressure and have to turn one eye to the summer as it’s a year of big decisions as Bruce looks to rebuild the squad given our Financial Fair Play constraints and we have numerous players out of contract at the end of the year.
On top of our loanees as long as I’ve got the list accurate, we also potentially face losing Almen Abdi, George Boyd, Gary Hooper, David Jones, Kieran Lee, Marco Matias, Frederik Neilson, Liam Palmer, Fraser Preston, Daniel Pudil and Keiren Westwood although some names on that list are more important than others.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post Tom Lees knew there would be a massive change to the playing staff, but he didn’t feel that would be a bad thing for the future as it would allow Bruce to truly stamp his mark on the club.
“There is a reason why the manager had to come in. It will not happen overnight. But the good thing this summer is the manager can put his own stamp on things. Get the team how he wants it to be. I know there are a lot of people out of contract but, in some ways, that is likely to be a good thing. From next season, he can have the squad he wants. It is then up to us to buy into it and show we deserve to be here next year.”
The question is with expected constraints to some degree, what players would be willing to take a cut to stay and thus not need to be replaced.
It’s going to be an interesting couple of months that’s for sure.
