Sheffield Wednesday: Daniel Pudil makes bold claim about Owls' squad

Although Wednesday recorded six wins from their last 10 outings, Jos Luhukay’s men were forced to settle for a mid-table finish.

Sunday’s 5-1 drubbing of Norwich City ensured the Owls ended up 15th in the standings.

It is a far cry to 12 months ago when Wednesday finished fourth and qualified for the play-offs.

For our Owls news and opinion on twitter follow here

Now attentions have quickly turned to next year and Pudil is optimistic the team can be involved in the promotion shake-up again.

He told The Star: “I think we have one of the strongest squads in the Championship. We have to push ourselves and the target is at least to be in the top six.”

It was confirmed just over a week ago that the Czech Republic international Pudil has signed a contract extension, tying him to the Hillsborough club until the summer of 2019.

“Hopefully we can get to the Premier League in that time,” said Pudil. “This is the target. This is why I came from Watford to get Sheffield Wednesday to the Premier League.

“This is one of the targets but we know the league is going to be even harder next season - we need to work hard. Everyone knows we can do it.

“We showed in the last 10 games we played well against big teams and I think we can beat everyone. It’s just up to us.”

For more news from Hillsborough click here

Pudil has been given a new lease of life under Luhukay. The Dutchman switched the 32-year-old from full-back to the centre of defence and Pudil produced a number of impressive displays in that position to help the Owls retain their second-tier status with three matches to spare.

He said: “The last ten games I think everything settled down.

“We knew how we had to play, a few injured players came back, obviously the squad got bigger. We played well, we were together, compact and I think we deserved the six games we won in the last 10.

“It’s absolutely brilliant and now we can have a little bit of a rest and take it into the next season because this season wasn’t great, everyone knows that, especially the first part of the season when we didn’t play well.

“We didn’t deserve much but we finished the season with confidence and let’s look forward.”

Follow Dom Howson on twitter