Sheffield Wednesday will be determined to prepare for the 2026/27 season with a proper pre-season campaign.
It goes without saying that pre-season was something of a shambles for Sheffield Wednesday last year.
The spiralling off-field crisis under former owner Dejphon Chansiri meant the squad was butchered, players were initially unable to use the club’s Middlewood Road training ground and not a single public pre-season friendly took place.
But following completion of Arise Capital Partners LLC’s takeover of the club last week, this summer is set have a very different feel to it. Although pre-season fixtures and the prospect of an overseas tour are yet to be confirmed, Owls manager Henrik Pedersen has long since been drawing up plans to ensure Wednesday do not experience another campaign like the one they have just exited.
The Dane was appointed Wednesday manager on July 31 last year, meaning he was installed as Danny Röhl’s replacement just over a week before the Owls got their season underway against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.
Although he had been present throughout the summer amid his previous role as assistant boss, he was not officially in charge of proceedings until the start of the season was only days away.
With Wednesday now at the beginning of a new era and optimism and hope sweeping its way through the surrounding streets of Hillsborough, the Owls will be determined to move forward next term, putting the nightmare of 2025/26 firmly behind them. To give themselves the best chance of making progress on the pitch, a proper pre-season campaign is going to be crucial.
Although it remains to be seen what sort of squad Pedersen will be working with come the start of pre-season, the Dane has outlined what will be a key theme in his quest to get his players in the best possible shape for the new campaign.
”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,” Pedersen told The Star with a chuckle, highlighting how demanding he wants this summer to be for his players.
“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.
“Today [vs West Bromwich Albion] was a very, very important step that we can win a football game again. So it has to be a mix between an opponent where we have a chance to win, to score some goals, and an opponent where we will be on the limit to press our own development.”
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