Top six is a minimum target for Sheffield Wednesday but don't panic if there's a slow start - Alan Biggs

Nothing less will do for Sheffield Wednesday this season. There is no hiding place for anyone on the management or playing side of the club. Not that they will be seeking it.

No hiding place for media commentators either. The leeway the likes of us gave last season, when the team fell short in the play-offs, cannot realistically be extended again.

In keeping with that, I’m tipping top two and automatic promotion from the off. It should be more than achievable with the squad manager Darren Moore and owner Dejphon Chansiri have amassed.

The key difference is that the Owls have recruited earlier and have the majority bedded in for the kick-off against Portsmouth at Hillsborough on Saturday.

Which is not to say there is any inevitability in what follows. Football matches are a series of random events and what looks good on paper is not always replicated on grass.

Promotion favourites are there to be shot at and Wednesday, through their size as a scalp, will have to be one of the two best teams, and then some, to reach their goal.

But it would take a lot of sand and a very long neck to say that Moore and his squad, given the extent of Chansiri’s financial support, could be excused for falling short.

Certainly, top six is a minimum and automatic promotion has to be the overriding target.

That’s not a gun to anyone’s head. It’s just the reality of how football operates in 2022 and how supporters react.

As a defender of Moore post relegation and early last season, I believe that in pulling together what he rightly called a “broken club”, he has done a good job.

The harmony of his open, honest and respectful relationship with the owner is crucial and will - again rightly - earn him the benefit of any doubt in the early weeks of the season.

But any pleas for further patience, from here or elsewhere, would be drowned out. And you can hardly blame one of football’s most patient fan bases for demanding nothing less than promotion this time.

The only appeal I’d make is to resist any panic cries if, for instance, the team isn’t around the top after half-a-dozen matches. Momentum has to be built.

But a firm course needs to have been set by the Autumn months of October and November to keep manager, players and fans on the same page.

One of the features of the second half of last season was how everyone came together. Here’s a great chance to make that stick much earlier and move the club a long way forward.

I can’t see any reason not to be confident of that happening.