What next after Sheffield Wednesday’s ‘pure fantasy’ promotion? – Alan Biggs’ column

Were those brinkmanship heroes of Wembley really playing themselves out of a job?

At least, that’s how the underlying storyline went. Big shake-up if Sheffield Wednesday missed out. Even bigger one if they were back in the Championship.

That contracts are raised within hours of a fairytale triumph really is invasive surgery of the cruellest kind. Only in football where nothing stands still long enough for 45,000 deafening cheers to echo.

Yet strangely, I’ve felt for some time that the cuts would run deeper in the lower division rather than the higher one.

We’ll have to see how this pans out with the 14 players in a state of flux.

What strikes you is that all of them have higher experience than third tier, some with distinction.

Let’s start with the nuts and bolts. Could Wednesday have afforded to keep carrying some fairly hefty salaries in League One? Would some of them – Wembley matchwinner Josh Windass for starters, not to mention George Byers – have wanted to stay anyway?

Two other considerations. The collective strength of the dressing room unit, greater than the sum of its parts, and a core principle of Darren Moore’s regeneration of the club.

Doesn’t sound like him to rip apart the fabric he’s created.

Then the fact that the Owls will need some seen-it-and-done-it attributes next season.

I’ve kept highlighting that this is an ominously ageing squad – average around 30 – and this certainly needs addressing.

It would have caught up with them more, in my opinion, against the upstarts of League One. No way was this squad going to keep resisting opposition for whom every game against Wednesday was a cup final.

They won’t be that prized scalp in the Championship. That said, younger and especially pacier players are required urgently and in all positions ideally. The balance has to be better.

And I love that the club had already schemed two different recruitment lists. That, as revealed by Moore at Wembley, is proper strategy and brings a nod to owner Dejphon Chansiri, who never stops funding the dream.

But I’d fight shy of a wholesale clear out. This lot have put their careers on the line and their hearts into it, not that there won’t be casualties.

I’m delighted for three people especially, starting with the longest-serving Liam Palmer, who has triggered another year and is more than worth it.

Then skipper Barry Bannan, who could have walked into almost any Championship side but stayed to make amends for a club he genuinely loves.

And last but not least, the manager. There’s a bloke who has bought into this club and tamed the almost intolerable pressures that go with it.

Sometimes the nice guys win. And looking at the squad he’s hauled with him, he’s not alone.