The Championship is historically one of the most difficult leagues to predict, but when it comes to pre-season expectations, Sheffield Wednesday are falling behind this term.
With 15 games gone, we are now roughly one-third of the way into the current Championship campaign, and it’s been a season of ups and downs for Sheffield Wednesday.
The Owls are sitting in 15th place right now, with 18 points on the board. But, after last season’s relegation scare, the hope is that Danny Rohl can lead his team to safety a lot sooner and push on for a better finish than last year.
Some pundits have labelled Sheffield Wednesday ‘inconsistent’ and believe they are about where they deserve to be at this stage of the season.
As it stands, though, Wednesday are slightly behind on where they were predicted to be at the start of the campaign, and we’ve done the mathematical calculations to prove it.
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Sheffield Wednesday have less points than predicted at this stage
Before the season began, Opta had Sheffield Wednesday pegged for a 12th place finish in the Championship in 2024/25.
The data from that simulation determined the Owls would pick up an average of 61.6 points across their 46 games this season. That’s an average of 1.34 points per game, and right now, Sheffield Wednesday are not hitting that number.
After 15 games, based on that figure, Rohl’s side would be on just over 20 points for the season right now. So, at least for now, the S6 outfit are two points off their target.
They are also three places behind where Opta predicted they would finish, though they are only one point off 12th placed Derby County as we head into the weekend.
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Defeats against big teams have let Sheffield Wednesday down
All is not lost, though. The chaotic nature of England’s second tier means that any team can quickly climb (or fall down) the table with just a couple of positive (or negative) results.
If Wednesday were to beat Cardiff City this weekend, and Norwich, Swansea, Derby, and Stoke all fail to win, Rohl would find himself in 11th place in the Championship table, and everything would look pretty rosy once more.
It has to be said, too, that Sheffield Wednesday have, generally speaking, picked up good results against the teams around or below them, while losing to the teams at the top of the league.
| Top six Championship team | Sheffield Wednesday result |
|---|---|
| Sunderland | Lost 4-0 (A) |
| Sheffield United | Lost 1-0 (A) |
| Leeds United | Lost 2-0 (H) |
| Burnley | Lost 2-0 (H) |
| West Brom | Won 3-2 (H) |
| Watford | Lost 6-2 (H) |
Danny Rohl is very aware of what separates Sheffield Wednesday from the top teams in the Championship, and it all comes down to that extra bit of quality and resilience you have to find at times.
Looking at the upcoming games for the Owls, they have a great chance to pick up all those points they are missing and then some, and could feasibly find themselves within touching distance of a play-off charge.
After Cardiff, Sheffield Wednesday face Hull City, Derby County, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers, Oxford United, and Stoke City, all of whom (bar Blackburn) are either below them in the league, or just one point in front.
Get through those games with positive results, and Sheffield Wednesday will be feeling pretty comfortable, and will not be losing any sleep over that pre-season prediction.