How Sheffield Wednesday can hire Pedersen upgrade with 7-time promotion winner

Sheffield Wednesday decided to part ways with head coach Henrik Pedersen after successive defeats without scoring a goal in League One.

The Owls were beaten 2-0 by Doncaster and 2-0 by Notts County in their last two outings in the third tier, which left them outside of the play-offs in eighth place.

Wednesday opted to stick with Danish boss after he oversaw the relegation from the Championship after an 18-point deduction made it almost impossible for them to avoid the drop.

Unfortunately, things have not gone as they would have liked in League One this season and they made the call to part ways with him after the loss to Doncaster at the weekend.

Why Sheffield Wednesday have made the right call with Pedersen

Eighth in the table and only three defeats in 11 matches may not seem like a disastrous start to the season on paper, but the underlying numbers did not suggest that the form was going to turn into a genuine promotion push.

Pedersen’s side had some standout performances in the second tier, beating Bromley 7-2 as one example, and he deserves credit for some of the good work that he did.

However, the Owls too often relied on the individual quality of their attacking players instead of being coached into creating consistent high-quality chances as a team.

Despite sitting within the top five for possession, passes per game, and xG, Sheffield Wednesday only ranked seventh for ‘big chances’ and 17th for xA.

These statistics suggest that they relied on the quality of their attacking players to generate high-quality xG chances for themselves, rather than putting their players into high-quality positions to score through patterns of play.

REUTERS/Craig Brough

Whilst they rank 17th in the league for xA, Reading, Huddersfield, and Stockport County, who make up three of the top five in the League, all rank within the top four for xA, which shows that they are better coached as teams from an offensive perspective.

Sheffield Wednesday targeting Pedersen upgrade

The board are now turning their attention to finding a suitable replacement for the Danish head coach, and are already eyeing a manager who would be a big upgrade in the dugout.

According to GIVEMESPORT, Sheffield Wednesday have already drawn up a list of three names to target for the vacant managerial position at Hillsborough.

The report claims that Paul Heckingbottom, recently sacked by Preston North End, Dave Challinor, and Dean Holden are all being targeted as possible options to replace Pedersen.

Challinor is an interesting option for the Owls to take a look at after he decided to leave Stockport County in the summer after losing the play-off final to Bolton last season.

Action Images via Reuters/Matthew Childs

The 51-year-old boss, who typically deploys a 3-4-2-1 formation, has won promotion seven times in his managerial career to date, including one with Colwyn Bay, one with Hartlepool United, three with AFC Fylde, and two with Stockport.

It is fair to say that the English tactician knows a thing or two about how to get a team out of a division, even if his side did fall short of making the Championship with the Hatters.

Astonishingly, Challinor took over Stockport in the National League and never finished a league season lower than third by the time he left them in League One after five seasons.

Whilst he lost in the play-offs on two occassions, he won two league titles and came one place off automatic promotion three times, which speaks to the quality of his coaching.

The former Stockport centre-back has proven throughout his career, with Stockport and at other clubs, that he knows how to coach a team to win games and win promotions, at various levels.

Sheffield Wednesday are in a position where they need someone who can guide them out of the division and Challinor may be the perfect man for the job, given his managerial career to date.

Action Images/Craig Brough

Pedersen did not have the same level of success to fall back on when the going got tough this season, as he had not won any promotions in his career before joining the club.

Therefore, Wednesday should be pushing to appoint Challinor as their new head coach as a replacement for Pedersen, as he could be much more suited to the job than the Dane was.