Sheffield Wednesday fans have a question only Henrik Pedersen knows the answer to
Excitement and optimism is building at Sheffield Wednesday ahead of the new season, but one common question is beginning to be asked among the supporters.
As Sheffield Wednesday’s woes worsened last season, supporters often joked they could not wait for the days when they could start discussing tactics and starting line-ups again.
With less than 50 days to go until the Owls’ League One opener against Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road, those conversations are starting to become more frequent among Wednesdayites on social media.
Following the chaos and carnage that was generated last season because of Dejphon Chansiri’s incompetence, everyone associated with the Owls is looking forward to the start of the 2026/27 campaign with renewed optimism and belief.
New signings are beginning to come through the door, Max Lowe has signed a new contract, infrastructure improvements are being made, and Arise Capital Partners and Wednesday employees are working at a frantic pace to try and clear up the mess left behind by Chansiri as quickly as possible. The mood is as positive as it has been in years.
Although Arise are keen to implement improvements across the board, rebuilding the squad is this summer’s leading priority, and quite rightly. Wednesday went through the Championship trapdoor with a squad bereft of depth and quality, meaning they are in a race against time to rebuild it ahead of the new campaign getting underway.
Just under two weeks into the transfer window, the Owls have confirmed the arrivals of two new faces thus far, recruiting Ricardo Santos from Swansea City and Jordi Liongola from RAAL La Louvière respectively. Santos is a commanding centre-back with plenty of experience in League One, while Liongola, who has only previously played club football in Belgium, has been described as ‘an attacking full-back’ by the Owls.
However, it appears Liongola is a versatile operator, capable of playing on either flank, meaning he could also be utilised as a winger or potentially as a wing-back. Speaking of wing-backs, Tayo Adaramola, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Hillsborough, is another player Wednesday hope to bring in this summer.
With Liongola and Santos through the door, Liam Cooper and Lowe tied down to new deals and Sil Swinkles - a centre-back - and Adaramola on the Owls’ radar, most Wednesdayites are asking a collective question: what formation will Henrik Pedersen use next season?
Last term, the Dane favoured a 5-3-2 system because of to the profiles he had available to him and the vulnerable position Wednesday were in at the foot of the Championship table. As the goals dried up just after Christmas, contributing to a record-breaking ten-game dry spell in front of goal, pressure increased on Pedersen to become more adventurous.
He caved into those requests away at Swansea City, moving to a 4-4-2. Wednesday lost the game 4-0, and the experiment wasn’t repeated. However, the Owls boss, earlier this year, admitted that he prefers playing with a back four, suggesting we could see a change in shape next term.
“I have more or less never played with a back five before; I love to play with a back four,” Pedersen told The Wednesday Word. “I have got a big injection from the Red Bull philosophy, the basic philosophy of Red Bull, with a very high and a very aggressive press with a lot of intensity, a lot of sprint metres.
“It is a pressing style we call ball-oriented pressing, where you want to create overloads around the ball so you can use this overload to play vertically forward when you win the ball. It is a hunting, defensive style.
“At the same time, we also want to be dominant on the ball, but it is in a more vertical way. I don’t just want to have the ball to have the ball; I want to use it when we have to create and to be dominant.”
Amid Pedersen’s honesty about preferring to play with a four-man defence, it will be interesting to see if the Dane switches to a back four ahead of the start of the new season. The addition of Santos and confirmation of Cooper and Lowe signing new deals mean that Wednesday are well-stocked at centre-back.
In addition to the aforementioned trio, the Owls’ centre-back department is also made up of Di’Shon Bernard, Gabriel Otegbayo, Ernie Weaver, Joe Emery and Cole McGhee. The anticipated arrival of Swinkles will only increase the number of options. Captain Liam Palmer, too, can also play at centre-back in a back three.
If a back four does prove to be the way forward, Pedersen could find it challenging keeping so many centre-backs happy, amid there only being room for two of them in a traditional back four. In that system, Lowe would almost certainly take the left-back spot.
However, amid the arrival of Liongola, who is an attack-minded operator, and the ongoing pursuit of Adaramola, who loves to get forward, it could be that a system featuring wing-backs continues to be the way forward.
A system built around a four-man defence would, of course, create room for more attackers, and the onus will be on Wednesday to get on the front foot and chase after teams next term.
With formations and systems starting to become topics of conversations online again after administration and embargoes established themselves as dominant subjects last season, only Pedersen and Wednesday’s pre-season campaign will provide the the answer so many fans are looking for.