Could Sheffield Wednesday’s Championship Survival End Sooner Than Anyone Expected?

Sheffield Wednesday’s season has been nothing short of a grinding disaster, a perfect storm brewed by Dejphon Chansiri’s chaotic reign ending amidst a nightmare start, a patchwork squad, and the crushing burden of administration and hefty points deductions. Even if we toss aside that brutal 18-point penalty, the Owls would still find themselves anchored to the bottom of the Championship, staggering with just a solitary win and eight draws in 30 matches—a gulf so deep it smacks of inevitable doom. It’s the kind of season where hope feels like a distant echo . . . and the math just keeps edging closer to confirming their drop. So, the real spine-tingler here is: how much longer can Wednesday cling onto survival before the harsh reality sinks in? LEARN MORE

Sheffield Wednesday have been resigned to relegation all season after Dejphon Chansiri’s tumultuous era came to an end with a terrible start to the season, a makeshift squad, administration, and points deductions.

Even without their 18-point deduction, Wednesday would be rock bottom of the Championship and a long way adrift of safety after claiming just one win and eight draws from their 30 games so far this season.

That has long made it just a matter of time before the Owls’ relegation was finally mathematically confirmed – but just how soon might it happen?

When is the earliest Sheffield Wednesday could be relegated from the Championship?

The earliest that Sheffield Wednesday could possibly be confirmed for relegation is Saturday, February 14, when they would still have another 14 games to play.

It is not possible for Wednesday to go down this weekend even if they lose to Swansea on Sunday lunchtime, as the largest possible gap to safety at the end of the weekend is 42 points with 15 games still to play.

Oxford take on Norwich on Tuesday evening, but that makes no different to Wednesday’s plight on its own.

However, another defeat for Wednesday against promotion-chasing Millwall would spell curtains if the team in 21st at the end of Valentine’s Day have at least 36 points. If Norwich beat Blackburn on Saturday lunchtime, though, then Wednesday definitely can’t go down in the next two games. With second-from bottom Oxford irrelevant for these purposes, that would happen if at least five of the following six things to occur on top of Wednesday losing both of the next two.

• Charlton get 2+ point(s) against QPR and Stoke
• Norwich fail to beat Blackburn but then beat Oxford
• Portsmouth get 3+ points against Preston and Sheffield United
• Leicester get 4+ points against Birmingham and Southampton
• Blackburn get 4+ points against Norwich and QPR
• West Brom get 4+ points against Stoke and Birmingham

When are Sheffield Wednesday most likely to be relegated?

It’s difficult to say with absolute precision, but it would seem reasonable to extrapolate out everyone’s points per game (ignoring Wednesday and Leicester’s deductions) and see when Wednesday cross the threshold.

Doing that actually doesn’t give Wednesday much more time at all, since they have taken just 0.37 points per game while all their rivals except Oxford have taken at least 1.07 points per game so far.

If we keep multiplying out by points per game and round down the result for each team, we’re effectively giving everyone else in the relegation mix three more points from their next three games (except Charlton, who get four, and Oxford, who get two) while Wednesday take just one point from their next three games.

That would mean Wednesday would be confirmed to be down on Sunday, February 22. And wouldn’t you just know it…they happen to be away to their cross-city rivals Sheffield United in a midday kick-off that day.

Unless Wednesday have an unexpected upturn in form, the nightmare scenario of relegation at Bramall Lane is likely to happen, because if Wednesday lose all of their next three, the team in 21st only needs to have 33 points to send the Owls down.

Just one more point for all of Leicester, Blackburn and West Brom over their respective next three games would achieve that.

Has a team ever been relegated with negative points before?

Not in the English league system, no – and Sheffield Wednesday are currently on course to become the first.

At their current points per game, they would finish the season with -1 point, and that’s if we’re generous with our rounding (since it would be -1.13 points without rounding).

There are very, very few examples of that ever happening before in world football: even the Luton side that was hit with a 30 point deduction in League Two in 2008/09 finished the season with 26 points to their name.

To the best of our research, the most recent time a club has finished a season anywhere in the world with minus points was Welsh side Airbus UK Broughton in the 2022/23 Cymru Premier season. The Flintshire-based side ended that campaign with no wins, two draws, 30 defeats, and a six-point deduction for fielding ineligible players in two of their league games, for a grand total of -4 points.

Would Wednesday have a chance of staying up if by some miracle they won every single game for the rest of the season?

Not really, no. They’d still end up on just 41 points, which should be more than enough to send them down because while there are exceptions in both directions, something in the region of 50 points is usually required to stay up in the Championship.

What’s the longest Sheffield Wednesday can technically hang on in there without making it a mathematical certainty, then?

If we again extrapolate everyone else’s seasons out on the same points per game basis while giving three points to Wednesday in every single game, they still would go down after their 40th game of the season.

That would be away to Stoke on April 3.