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Sheffield Wednesday conceded late to lose 1-0 to Hull City on Saturday and wave off their outsider hopes at play-off qualification - but as is so often the sorry case at S6, the bigger stories are off the field.
Chaos has once again been been rained down from above, with player wages still unpaid as of Saturday evening and a d-day looming on those payments. Should their players not receive their March wages on Monday latest, the crippling nature of a three-window transfer embargo awaits. In terms of life under Dejphon Chansiri, it’s been a remarkably unremarkable turn of events at S6.
Having trudged off the field to the concern of watching supporters, Danny Röhl’s post-match press conference was a vision of despondency, the German coach speaking in hushed tones with the body language of a beaten boxer. The feeling was that there was more left unsaid than has been transcribed.
A 10-minute interview with The Star contained just a brief chat about football; the goal they conceded was avoidable but impressive, some 50-50 decisions went against them, pride in his players. But it was an afternoon on which on-field chinwag felt futile.
Thrown into the week’s bursting Wednesday news cycle were links to Leicester City and RB Leipzig, with bubbling interest from Southampton long since established. Inevitably, Röhl appears to be a man in demand and for good reason; he’s an immensely talented young coach sat in an unhappy marriage. And now the direction of travel with regard to his future is becoming clearer than ever before
It’s been thus for a while, in truth. An unhappy marriage with Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri reached new lows after an approach from Southampton that dragged into the winter transfer window, compensation standing in the way of Röhl’s December exit. It’s believed the pair’s relationship was strained long before that. This week’s developments hammer home the rocky nature of life at Hillsborough.
“At the moment it is not the time to speak about my future,” Röhl told The Star having already spoken about the memories he will take from managing the Owls squad. “The club knows my thoughts, they know where we are, what I want to do in the future. And this is the most important thing.”
Röhl is under contract until the summer of 2027 and it seems likely that any club wishing to whisk him from Wednesday is going to have to pay whatever compensation the club are entitled to. The nuts, bolts and figures that make up that contract are unknown. The contract remains and at Sheffield Wednesday anything is possible, but the direction of travel appears to be gathering pace.
They had a good thing going for a while there. The old saying goes that in any unhappy marriage, it’s always the kids that suffer in the end. In this case, those suffering are several thousand football supporters.
