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Long-serving Sheffield Wednesday captain Barry Bannan (left) joined Millwall in January to end a decade with the club in January
ByIan Woodcock
BBC Sport, Yorkshire
Barring a highly unlikely series of results, administration-hit Sheffield Wednesday will become the first team in English Football League history to be relegated in February at some point in the next week.
The foundations for this relegation were set last summer when former owner Dejphon Chansiri's chaotic tenure came to a head with numerous missed wage payments.
A large number of the senior squad and manager Danny Rohl left in the summer before the Owls were eventually placed into administration in October.
Two separate points deductions - totalling 18 points - followed, and it has always been a case of when, not if they went down from the Championship this season.
A preferred bidder for the club was selected in December but the Owls remain in administration and are operating under tight restrictions, leaving them with a threadbare squad ill-equipped to compete at this level.
However, few would have thought relegation could come quite as early as this and, to make matters worse, it could in fact now be confirmed at bitter cross-city rivals Sheffield United on Sunday.
How can Owls delay inevitable?
How the bottom of the Championship table looks before Blackburn face Preston on Friday
If Sheffield Wednesday win all of their remaining 14 games of the season, they will finish the campaign on 35 points.
Despite that, the Owls will be relegated before Sunday's derby if Blackburn Rovers avoid defeat against Preston North End on Friday and West Bromwich Albion beat Coventry City on Saturday.
However, if Blackburn are beaten, then a draw for Leicester at Stoke on Saturday, coupled with a West Brom win, will send the Owls down by virtue of the fact that Rovers and the Foxes meet on the final day of the season, guaranteeing that one of them will finish on at least 36 points.
Should things fall into place for the Owls, who are still on -7 points, they must then win at Bramall Lane to stop the 'R' from being placed next to their name this weekend.
Winning a derby away from home is a tall task at the best of times, but when you consider that Wednesday's only win all season came at Portsmouth in September, they have lost their past nine games in the Championship, and have not so much as scored in the past six Steel City derbies, you get some idea of what Henrik Pedersen's beleaguered men are up against.
"We will do everything to bring a top, top performance to compete with them," Pederson told BBC Radio Sheffield. .
"Of course, we know it will happen some day.
"Nobody understands what this group has been through in the past many months.
"I have a group with a big belief and big motivation, and a group of senior players who are ready to do everything for our fans and stand up and perform.
"They know that 95% will not be enough."
The 18 points Sheffield Wednesday have been deducted are the third highest in a single Football League season.
Derby County were deducted 21 in the 2021-22 campaign but took their fight for Championship survival through to April, while Luton Town were hit with a 30-point penalty in the 2008-09 season but finished on a creditable 26 points as they dropped out of League Two and also won the Football League Trophy.
Henrik Pedersen on the Steel City Derby
Looking to avoid the history books
With 14 games to go, Wednesday are also in danger of setting several more unwanted EFL records, including:
No team has ever ended a season on minus points. The Owls, who have won 11 points from 32 games so far, need seven from 14 matches to avoid this.
Allowing for three points a game, the fewest points a team has ever picked up in a Football League season is Loughborough with nine in 1899-1900. In more recent times, Derby County went down from the Premier League with 11 points in the 2007-08 season. The all-time low for a 46-game season is Doncaster Rovers' 20 points in 1997-98.
The record for the most defeats in a 46-game league season also belongs to Doncaster with 34 in the 1997-98 campaign. Wednesday have lost 23 of their first 32 games, meaning 12 defeats in their remaining 14 matches would see them break that record.
The most consecutive defeats suffered by a team in one season was by Darwen way back in the 1898-99 season with 18. Since the second tier was rebranded as the Championship, the record for the most successive defeats is Rotherham's 10 in the 2016-17 season. Pedersen's side have lost their past nine games.
In a 46-game season, the fewest wins a team has ever managed is Rochdale's two as they were relegated from the third tier in 1973-74.
Wednesday's only win this season came away from home, meaning the Owls are now just six games from becoming the first Football League team to go an entire season without a home win.
The farthest adrift a team has finished is Stoke City in the 1984-85 season. They finished 33 points from safety in the top tier. At present, the Owls are 41 points behind 21st-placed West Brom.
Image source, Shutterstock
Wednesday have scored 19 goals in their 32 games. The fewest goals scored by a team in a 46-game season is Stockport County's 27 in 1969-70.
'The game isn't decided on team sheets'
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder has said the prospect of relegating their cross-city rivals is "not in his thought process at all".
The Blades fan, who is unbeaten in his seven games against the Owls, said he disagreed with the notion that his side, who are 15th in the table, should cruise to a win.
"We'll have done more preparation on this game than we have on any game this season and all the games other than the play-off final last season," he told BBC Radio Sheffield.
"I've got complete respect for Henrik and a group of players... there's talk of it being a mismatch or a gimme, whether it's bookies' odds or the narrative in the city... football just doesn't work like that.
"The players have to play with a discipline and a control to win a game of football, to win a local derby."
Wilder added: "We put a slide up about Macclesfield v Crystal Palace and Bodo/Glimt v Manchester City. There are all sorts of examples recently, let alone [in] the 100 years plus of football, the game isn't decided on team sheets.
"We understand it's basically their season on the line, we're not daft. But we've got our fight, and ours has to be bigger than theirs."
'There is a lot on the line for us as well'
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