Should Henrik Pedersen Still Be Sheffield Wednesday Manager Next Season?

"Do you want him to be manager next season?" Craig asked.

"Absolutely not. He's bloody dreadful," I said.

"Well, don't you think he deserves a shot?"

"I mean… err… well, maybe."

"Yes or no?"

"…I don't know."

But I've thought about it since, and I have an answer. The bad news is it's quite long winded, so pardon my rant before I tell you.

START OF RANT

I think Henrik Pedersen is a terrible manager. I am sure he is a nice guy, but I'm a nice guy too and I'm pretty sure you don't want me wandering into the press conference. And the frustrating thing is I couldn't even tell you what kind of football Sheffield Wednesday actually play. What's the style? What's the identity? I genuinely have no idea, and I'm not sure Pedersen does either. Watching Wednesday this season was like paying for a gym membership you hate. You keep going because you've already paid for it and you feel guilty if you don't. For the most part we played five at the back, occasionally switching to a 4-2-3-1 (you could argue it was a 4-2-3-0 with Jamal Lowe up front).

MID RANT

Ohhh yes, Jamal "I've got a new contract" Lowe. Great guy, don't get me wrong, but he did kind of wander around the pitch aimlessly, losing the ball. Like a man who has wandered into the wrong room and has no idea how he got there. But honestly, it all blurs into one and that's kind of the point. There was no real identity to latch onto, no moment where you thought "yes, this is us." Just the same shapeless, joyless performances

Speaking of the shape, which was quite weird, you have to agree. We seemed to defend and not really try to score, one half of the pitch full of our players and one man up front. I honestly cannot figure out what was happening. Was he just thinking about defending all the time? Is this what he normally does? Because I do not like this one bit!

It was a season that broke Barry Bannan. He looked like a broken man by the end of his time with us, like a soldier coming back from the Somme. I imagine Millwall stuck him in a hospital for a few weeks while he convalesced, suffering from loss fatigue. I do picture Pedersen coming in at half time to find a shell shocked Barry Bannan hiding under the physio's table, before getting up, holding a Lucozade in his shaking hands and saying "I need to leave."

Then there's the Charlie McNeill situation. Pedersen comes out and tells us McNeill is the best finisher at the club, then proceeds to stick him out on the wing.

Crashing on to Mr Ugbo and the saga around him. We're told Pedersen has had a good chat with him, everything's fine, and then Ugbo basically vanishes. That good chat must have been about where he was going on holiday, because he certainly hasn't been to Hillsborough much since. It's just been odd.

ENDING RANT SOON I PROMISE

So yes, Pedersen hasn't been good. But I hate to say it, we cannot sack him.

We don't have time in the close season to sack him and spend two or three weeks searching for someone new. What we need is to get our house in order. We need good backroom staff, a proper structure, and a clear plan for how to rebuild this club from the ground up.

Because what this season has really exposed isn't just Pedersen, it's the whole club. We had an entire squad essentially made up of fringe players and reserves, and out of that group, maybe two, three at an absolute push, showed they belong at this level. The rest were simply ok or not good enough.

Now I know what some people will say, he hasn't really had a team, and that is true. I do accept he was handed a shit sandwich. But here's the thing, and this will annoy you if Sheffield United were in this same situation, with Chris Wilder in the dugout and a similar group of players, do you think they'd have looked like us? And I do not like Chris Wilder, a man who seems to be slowly turning into Donald Trump with his weird rambling post-match interviews, but even he probably gets more than 0 points out of that squad. Because let's face it, we have been dreadful this season. One or two short-lived highlights, and no amount of "I'm proud of the lads" helps me shake that feeling.

It all traces back to Chansiri, of course. His incompetence has been the root cause of almost everything that's gone wrong. But we also have to be honest with ourselves, you cannot put it all at his door. There is something deeply embarrassing about a club the size of Sheffield Wednesday not being able to produce Championship-quality players from within. The whole setup has been hotchpotch for years, and this season has ripped the curtain down and shown everyone exactly how threadbare things really are.

So the answer to Craig's question? Yes. I suppose so!!!