Exclusive:Derby week, intensity and the view on Henrik Pedersen - a day spent behind the scenes at Sheffield Wednesday
A true peek behind the scenes at a professional football club is a rare thing indeed - rarer still in the build-up to the biggest game of a side’s season. The Star spent some time at Sheffield Wednesday’s Middlewood Road yesterday. Alex Miller reports.
The players buzz around one another in a drill clearly designed to sharpen their attacking instincts; two versus one, three against two, the ball thrown between the teams dressed in bibs of opposing colour to battle over. The mood is competitive and determined as Henrik Pedersen breaks away from a conversation with a staff member to demand further intensity from the group. The words were heeded and the next wave is crisper, nastier, snappier than before.
Football is a cynical industry and from the outside, onlookers may carry a certain image of what life behind the scenes at Middlewood Road would be like right now. Sheffield Wednesday’s training ground hosts a group of players winless since the embers of summer were still burning, whose goal in a gut-punch defeat to Millwall ended a run without that stretched from Boxing Day to Valentines Day. You’d be forgiven for thinking spirit behind the scenes was miserable, defeated and lacking in life. Surely Pedersen’s press conference suggestions of training ground energy is the stuff of PR puff-up?
Invited to take in some of training on Tuesday to judge for ourselves, it’s clear there’s plenty of snap and crackle remaining behind the scenes despite the results and all that has been thrown at the camp. The suggestion is that there have been down days along the way of course, inevitably so, but the experience of the day - in derby week no less - was that this isn’t an outfit that can be accused of going through the motions or meandering its way through to the end of a brutal campaign.
In fact, the feeling was quite the opposite and despite results, that spirit has transferred to the pitch in many ways. During a few hours spent behind the scenes, The Star is told that Wednesday’s total sprint distance of 4,109 metres on Saturday is the highest team total sprint distance output by any team in the Championship in the last three seasons. It’s a remarkable statistic that doesn’t earn you points, but is indicative of a spirit cultivated in the face of continued adversity. It’s a spirit that will be required this weekend.
From a distance, it may seem odd for a reporter to seek to commend the management of a camp that has lost 10 matches on the bounce. But amid bubbling and inevitable criticism online, the fact must be stressed that the circumstances Sheffield Wednesday continue to wade through are brutally unique. While none of this is remotely enjoyable to cover or watch from the stands, word from the vast majority of people in the game that The Star has spoken to - both internally and externally and both on and off the record - is that they believe the job done by Henrik Pedersen and his coaching staff deserve props in keeping their side largely competitive in the majority of matches and away from week-on-week batterings.
This weekend’s trip to Bramall Lane offers a puncher’s chance of achieving something iconic, something everyone connected to the club can cling on to in the year of all years.
“Would have been even harder to endure..”
A derby win would be one for the history books. A double-decimation has left a squad determined and battling but ultimately ill-fitted to the demands of one of the most competitive divisions on the planet. The Wednesday changing room is an odds-and-sods casserole of experienced older heads approaching the end of their careers, of eager-but-inexperienced loanees and of youngsters who in an alternate universe are cutting their teeth on loan at Alfreton or Gainsborough like those before them. Behind them sits a medical room housing eight players that would improve their line-up.
Other Championship clubs have fared better in administration in years gone by but any comparisons don’t stack up; Derby County’s ultimately doomed effort in the 2021/22 season returned 14 wins and 13 draws that would have seen them survive were it not for the obligatory 12-point deduction. But a glance down their squad list from that campaign shows a side made up largely of contracted players that four years on have gone on to play regularly in the Championship and or in some of Europe’s top leagues - theirs, frankly, was a larger and much more competitive squad.
“It’s important people understand the reality of where we are,” Owls joint-administrator Kris Wigfield told The Star. “On a recent matchday, our entire matchday squad had a weekly cost in wages that amounted to less than the reported wages of one player that signed for a Championship club in the January window. It’s my understanding that many League Two clubs have a higher wage bill for their match day squad than we currently have.
“Our role as administrators is to stabilise the club, protect its future and exit administration cleanly. Henrik’s role is to keep the team competitive during that process, and he has done so with professionalism and integrity.
“These young players have stepped up and been a credit to the club as they compete with seasoned Championship campaigners. You can see that the players are still fighting and playing for Henrik. We haven’t been rolled over many times, we haven’t suffered many heavy defeats, and the commitment has rarely dropped. That speaks volumes about the environment he’s created and the respect he has from the dressing room.
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“Henrik is one of the best leaders I’ve ever met. He has acted with integrity, honesty and professionalism throughout an incredibly difficult period for this club. For those reasons, I will always defend Henrik — both while I am here and long after I’ve gone. Without his resilience and leadership, this season would undoubtedly have been even harder to endure.”
“A lot would have walked..”
Watching on from the sidelines at Tuesday’s training session, that feeling of respect Pedersen and his staff hold is clear. His is a small but talented team of different approaches, some of accomplished CVs and some accelerated into senior football at the same rate of some players. While no footballer is likely to lambast their manager in a press conference, into a seventh season as a club reporter across a host of Wednesday iterations, it’s not been especially uncommon to hear of buck-passing grumbles from players towards management during a lean spell. In this, the leanest of seasons, that simply hasn’t been the case.
Any shortcomings in a fiercely difficult environment aren’t for a lack of effort. It’s understood Pedersen routinely reports to the training ground at 6am and often leaves beyond 8pm. He’s been known to call staff at any time towards midnight and is a manager not only of one team, but of many individuals. His appears to be a hyper-personal approach with little downtime, supporters who found themselves in the same hotel ahead of a recent away trip having watched on from the lobby in admiration as the Dane sat through meeting after meeting with each player long into the evening.
Liam Cooper is one such player. He boasts oceans of experience across England’s top five divisions and has worked with one of the world’s most celebrated managers in Marcelo Bielsa.
“They’ve been unbelievable,” he told The Star when asked on the efforts of the coaching team. “I honestly don’t know another group of people, another individual if we’re talking about Henrik, that could have coped with this. A lot would have walked with some of the stuff that I probably can’t talk about - but what they have to deal with on a daily basis is difficult. They keep the group going. They’re amazing people.
“I can only speak on behalf of myself, but he makes you want to play for him. There’s nobody more disappointed than Henrik at the way results have gone, but that’s not for the lack of trying. He’s ultra-positive every day and we’ve got a proper gameplan going into every game. We’ve not been able to get over the line and get the points that we deserve for whatever reason. We don’t make excuses and it’s not been good enough but I don’t think many would be able to get on with the goings-on and what he’s had to go through on a daily basis. I’ve got nothing but good words to say about them.
“The best coaches I’ve worked under are obsessed with the game and if you speak to Henrik’s coaches they’ll say exactly that; he’s obsessed. There are no days off for him, he’ll have the team analysing games constantly and that’s how you’ve got to be. There are so many good managers in the league now, so you have to be a bit different. The lads are on board with him and we’ve just got to keep going. It would be nice to get a result for him as well.”
Back to the training session, a senior player slows his pace and loses a duel. Pedersen pulls him to one side and though the distance is too great to get an understanding of what is said and how, it’s clear the demand is for more. The player responds, his next action a snappy twist and finish beyond a sprawling goalkeeper with cries of appreciation from his teammates.
Whatever happens on Sunday and whenever the inevitable is confirmed, the look and feel of Sheffield Wednesday’s behind-the-scenes approach to this season would take one or two by surprise. Even in the maelstrom of madness this season has provided, their performance in the derby in November was unacceptable. Desire, snap and crackle is all fans ask for on Sunday. Their preparation continues.