No other team in Europe is in as bad a position as Sheffield Wednesday in the English Championship. On Monday, the team at the bottom of the second division set a negative record.
Despite a lightning start thanks to Jerry Yates, who scored in the second minute at home to Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield Wednesday only managed a 1-1 draw against Leicester City on Monday, with Jordan Ayew scoring the equalizer in the 84th minute. It was the Owls’ tenth draw of the current season, in which they have lost a whopping 30 times. A sense of achievement? There was exactly one: a 2-0 win at Portsmouth on matchday 6.
After that, there was a negative run that has only been seen once in this form since the first professional league was founded in England in 1888: Sheffield have been without a win in 36 competitive games, and only Derby County were that bad between September 2007 and August 2008. Since the game at Portsmouth on September 20, 2025, the four-time English champions, who were a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, have conceded 26 defeats in 35 league games and drawn nine times – plus a 0:2 in the 3rd round of the FA Cup against Brentford.
Point deduction and relegation sealed long ago
The poor run is just one aspect of a disastrous season that will certainly go down as one of the worst in the club’s history. Due to “breaches of payment obligations”, the club had started the season with a deduction of 18 points – a mortgage that was too high for then coach Danny Röhl, who had led the team to twelfth place the season before and had left Sheffield shortly before the first matchday.
It was clear to many at the start of the season, including former Braunschweig coach Henrik Pedersen, who took on the challenge anyway, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to stay in the league with such a draconian punishment. The miracle failed to materialize and Sheffield Wednesday have known since matchday 33 that they will go down. The team is currently 46 points behind second-last Oxford United in the Championship with -5 points.
On Saturday (1.30pm), the Owls will now be looking to avoid becoming the team with the longest winless streak in history – but they will need nothing more and nothing less than a win at league leaders Coventry City to ensure that doesn’t happen.
