Work done to avoid repeat of Sheffield Wednesday summer shocker with EFL request made
Sheffield Wednesday’s chaotic pre-season last summer was the product of a broken club.
Steps have already been taken to avoid any repeat of Sheffield Wednesday’s omnishambles pre-season of last year, with structural work already undertaken alongside plans published earlier this week that will see the Owls head off to Europe as part of their summer preparations.
In the eye of a storm that saw largely unpaid players have to train away from Middlewood Road for the bulk of their pre-season efforts, friendly run-outs were played behind closed doors with one training match at Burnley cancelled as the squad chose to protest against the spiralling situation at S6. In a cruel irony, even a pre-scheduled trip to St George’s Park saw star man Djedi Gassama cross the corridor to sign for Rangers, who were also training at the facility.
Gladly, Wednesday are under new ownership and look to be far better prepared, with training camps at St George’s and abroad in Hungary and Austria announced alongside a handful of friendlies - two of which will be played against Championship opponents West Brom and Preston - both behind closed doors - before a split-squad double effort over the Pennines on August 1, the weekend before the Carabao Cup season opener. It is possible further friendlies and training exercises against other sides are sought, though it is not known whether these will also be played behind closed doors.
The double relaying of the two grass pitches at Middlewood Road was at the centre of the issues that left the squad training away from their base, with some players having refused to undertake some training sessions such was the unsuitability of the alternative artificial surface at the Jubilee facility. Weather and circumstance contributed to a long delay in the Middlewood Road pitches not being fit for training.
The Star understands that the bulk of the work in relaying the training pitches has already been completed and that the pitches look in fine order some weeks before pre-season begins. The pitch at Hillsborough has also already been laid in line with regular off-season work.
This summer will not see the return of a previously traditional Hillsborough friendly, in no small part down to contingencies around work required on the stadium. Work required to remedy safety concerns in the North Stand is already a couple of weeks in but further work is to be completed and while it is expected everything will be signed off well before the season start, it is understood that the club have indeed submitted a request to the EFL that they play away from home for their League One opener the weekend of August 14 - as The Star revealed would be the case in April.
Senior figures at the club confirmed Star reports earlier in the year that safe standing will be implemented on a trial basis this season. As of our latest understanding, that work has not started on account of the ongoing work on the North Stand being a first priority - though this is not believed to be too arduous a job. The initial placing of safe standing will be situated at the ‘T1’ end of the stand.
Clearly fixtures schedulers have no say in who plays where for the drawn Carabao Cup tie the weekend before - should the North Stand unexpectedly not be cleared by then, other stands will be opened accordingly to suit demand. It is stressed that there is no reason to believe this will be the case at this stage.
Plans for the squad have long since been in place. Speaking after the final day win over West Brom on takeover day May 2, manager Henrik Pedersen revealed a gruelling programme had been laid out.
“We will have seven weeks until the first league game and six weeks to the cup game, and the first two weeks we don't need to play games, we just have to run,” he told The Star with a smile.
“Of course it will be tough for the boys. And normally after seven or eight training sessions the first week, they then need a rest and then the second week we will integrate games, but only 45 minutes. The third week we want to have 60 minutes, the fourth week we want to have more, and then we will build it up in this way. But we also need to train a lot, so we can be top, top fit, and then we need to learn to win football games again.”