Sheffield Wednesday will almost certainly be relegated this month, and there’s a chance it happens at the home of their most bitter rivals, Sheffield United.

The Owls currently sit rock bottom of the Championship table on -7 points, and with 15 games left to play there are 45 points left up for grabs. Even if the impossible happened and Wednesday won all of their remaining fixtures, the highest tally they could rack up would be 38 points.

As things stand, 33 points would be enough to climb out of the current Championship relegation zone, however the other teams in the fight for survival will pick up points here and there in the games to come. Two of them, Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion, are in action later this evening, and could potentially reach 35 and 36 points respectively with wins over Southampton and Birmingham City.

Sheffield Wednesday could be relegated next week

Should Wednesday then go on to lose against Millwall on Saturday, then the Baggies would be out of reach, although Leicester would still technically be catchable on goal difference - though that’s of course incredibly unlikely.

While it’s impossible to say without knowing what happens in games elsewhere, there’s a growing possibility that it is rivals, United, who deal the final blow at Bramall Lane on February 22nd.

All Wednesday Podcast

Interviews, match analysis and behind-the-scenes chat - new episodes every week.

▶ Subscribe on YouTube

Defeat to the Lions would drop the Owls’ possible total to 35, and with the Steel City derby set for a Sunday afternoon, all of the other relegation-battlers will have already played their fixtures. Henrik Pedersen’s men could be down before kick-off depending on what happens elsewhere.

The derby could be the kicker, though, with a loss at S2 seeing Wednesday’s possible points tally fall to 32 - which Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City already have. If the Owls, who haven’t won since September and haven’t scored since Boxing Day, don’t pick up results in their next two fixtures then the Blades look likely to be the ones that will send them down to League One.

No team in the history of English football has ever finished a season on minus points, and while the fault of this relegation falls at the door of one man, should the drop back into the third tier happen at the hands of their city rivals it’ll be one final kick in the shins in what has been a disastrous campaign.