Danny Rohl set for new Sheffield Wednesday contract after remarkable first season at Hillsborough

The German has been in talks with chairman Dejphon Chansiri since returning from a family holiday in Dubai and although a new deal is yet to be announced, reports in his homeland suggest it has been agreed.

Rohl signed a contract until the end of next season when he arrived in October 2023, but the job he did put him in an extremely strong negotiating position.

He was keen to use that leverage to bring about changes on and off the field that could build on the tremendous work he did saving the Owls from a relegation which was looking increasingly inevitable even when he arrived at Hillsborough.

Rohl wanted the infrastructure around the club's Middlewood Road ground in particular to be looked at, and there has been talk that his buyout clause may change. It is likely his coach Chris Powell came into the discussion too, as the former England left-back was only under contract until this summer.

It was clear Rohl had an excellent and mutual rapport with the club’s supporters but there was nothing thinly-veiled about his late-season media comments about the need for the club to progress. They were not veiled at all.

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The ripple effect of the number of post-season managerial changes – more in the first few days after the campaign ended than the whole of it – left Wednesday vulnerable to predators.

The then-34-year-old first interviewed for the job last summer after the departure of Darren Moore but Chansiri preferred the greater Championship experience of former Watford manager Xisco Munoz over Rohl, who had been on the coaching staff of Southampton, RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich and the German national team but had yet to dip his toe in senior management.

Munoz was sacked after a disastrous first 10 Championship matches which yielded just two points, a tally caretaker manager Neil Thompson extended to three with a 0-0 draw against Moore’s Huddersfield Town in his only game in charge.

It was the worst start in Wednesday’s league history, and a points tally no club had survived Championship relegation with after 11 games.

Rohl lost five of his first six games – the exception was a 2-0 win at home to Rotherham United – but fans could see an improvement in the team which would eventually come off.

A 1-1 draw against Leicester City on November 29 kick-started the team. Had the Championship begun that morning, the Owls would have finished sixth, in the play-off positions.

They secured their Championship place for next season with a final-day win over Sunderland, finishing the season 20th with 53 points.

After a performance like that, it was essential Wednesday fought off the inevitable interest in him.

But Rohl signing up to work for ITV at this summer's European Championship did not suggest a man about to move to a new club, and it now appears the agreement all Owls had been hoping for will come to pass.