Sheffield Wednesday have agreed a deal for Dave Challinor to become the club's new first-team manager. The agreement was reached last night, and the 51-year-old will be at Hillsborough this afternoon to watch his new side take on Blackpool.
The club plans to formally introduce him to supporters on Monday, when further details of the appointment will be announced. Expect the length of his contract and the shape of his backroom team to be the first questions, with long-time assistant Clint Hill widely expected to follow him.
It brings the search for Henrik Pedersen's successor to a close a week after he left the club. Challinor was the frontrunner from the start, as we reported earlier this week, and the deal came together once chief executive David Bruce and sporting director Simon Wilson returned from the United States.
Why Challinor?
His CV is built on promotions, seven of them across spells at AFC Fylde, Hartlepool and Stockport. At Edgeley Park he won the National League and League Two in successive seasons, then took County to last season's League One play-off final, where they lost to Bolton. He left by mutual consent in June.
The link to Wilson is the obvious one. The pair worked together throughout Stockport's rise, and Wednesday's sporting director knows exactly what he is getting: a demanding coach whose sides press hard, play with tempo and adapt their shape to the players available. Whether that translates to a club of Wednesday's size and a crowd of 30,000 is the question he now has to answer.
What happens next
Matt Hamshaw is expected to take charge against Blackpool one last time, with Challinor watching from the stands. His first game in the dugout is likely to be the FA Cup first-round trip to Oldham, and the international break that follows should give him something few new managers get: proper time on the training ground at Middlewood Road before his first league game.
Today, though, the job is three points. A win in front of the new manager would be a decent way to start the next chapter.
Source: Sheffield Wednesday FC