Henrik Pedersen explains why Oxford United defeat did Sheffield Wednesday a favour vs West Brom
Sheffield Wednesday brought a nightmare campaign to an end with a 2-1 win over West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
Sheffield Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen saluted his players for demonstrating the culture and mentality they have adopted this season after finishing the campaign on a high against West Bromwich Albion at Hillsborough on Saturday.
On what was a momentous day in S6 following confirmation of Arise Capital Partners LLC completing their takeover of the club, Wednesday fought to the bitter end to seal their first home win in over a year, running out 2-1 winners against a Baggies side that was unbeaten in their last ten matches.
First half goals from Nathaniel Chalobah and captain Liam Palmer got the job done for the Owls, who can now look forward to next season with a fresh start and a clean slate after an anticipated 15-point deduction was quashed.
Pedersen and everyone associated with Wednesday is, of course, now looking forward to a brighter future under the guidance of David Storch and fellow members of the US consortium, but not even that was going to allow Pedersen to lose focus of trying to secure a first home win of the season to ensure his side avoided relegation with a negative points tally.
And after producing one of their most underwhelming performances of the campaign the previous weekend, losing 4-1 to Oxford United at the Kassam Stadium, Pedersen was delighted that his players demonstrated the courage and character to bounce back from that and deliver a first home win in over 12 months to avoid going an entire season without a win at Hillsborough.
“To come on zero points in the big picture, it means nothing,” said Pedersen. “If you have minus three or zero it means a lot to us because it shows the culture that we never gave up and that we kept on fighting to the end. This makes me so proud.
“The Oxford game... and maybe we should have this Oxford game with a very poor performance because then we will get tested. The culture in the team, that we could come back after a poor performance [was positive].
“Three weeks ago I spoke about a poor training [session] and then we have a good training afterwards, and we played against Charlton, I think. Now we have had a poor game, but it was the last chance to have a poor game.
“I didn’t speak about the result; I spoke about the performance. So we had a test to come back from this performance in Oxford, and to show who we want to be again.
“It made me really, really proud that we could turn this around again and to do this today. I know the atmosphere today was amazing, but still, what the boys did today, it makes me proud that we could turn this around, and we have to remember West Brom had not lost for ten games.”