How Sheffield Wednesday’s financial woes could hit their January transfer window plans

The Championship club are refusing to comment on reports players only received a maximum of £7,000 of their November wages, with the rest promised later. Wage payments were late in June.

The financial problems arising from the Covid-19 pandemic cast doubt on whether the January transfer window can be the panacea manager Tony Pulis hopes.

The Owls are bottom of the table after 19 matches of the 46-game season, seven points from safety. Their position is not helped by a six-point deduction for a financial fair play breach to try to get around rules limiting the losses clubs can run up to £39m over a three-year period.

Pulis has made clear his squad “needs help” in January, but has been more guarded when asked if funds will be made available.

“I’ve seen clubs in this situation, I’ve seen what it takes to get clubs out of this situation and it’s a task, it’s difficult,” he said after Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at relegation rivals Nottingham Forest.

“You can squeeze and squeeze but if the pips aren’t there...

“The players are looking for one or two players to come in and help out because it’s going to be a long season.”

Pulis is yet to win any of his eight matches in charge this season and has been unhappy with the “unbalanced” nature of the squad he inherited.

On Saturday, the Owls lost defender Dominic Iorfa for the rest of the season after rupturing his Achilles tendon in a 2-1 defeat to Barnsley. He underwent surgery on Wednesday and is not expected to play for another six months.Centre-backs Joost van Aken and Moses Odubajo and winger Adam Reach have been used at left-back. Predecessor Garry Monk reshaped his squad in the summer along the lines of the 3-5-2 formation he played but Pulis has switched between four and five at the back in search of the right formula.

Matt Penney is the only senior specialist left-sided defender but his two Championship appearances this season were in September. He is seen more as a wing-back than a full-back.

Pulis is also unhappy with his attacking options. Monk signed Callum Paterson and Elias Kachunga as centre-forwards, but Pulis does not consider either to be such, even though he has used Scotland international Paterson there on many occasions.

Jack Marriott’s year was ended by injury before Pulis took over from Monk. He has returned to parent club Derby County, and it is unclear if he will be back for the second half of the season.

That leaves Josh Windass and Jordan Rhodes as the only other options at centre-forward. Windass was sent off in Pulis’s first game in charge, at Preston North End, and picked up a three-match ban but has scored twice in four matches on his return.

Rhodes is the club’s record signing, on wages to reflect that, and has featured in six of Pulis’s eight games but only for a combined 138 minutes (plus stoppage time). He suffered the indignity of being substituted as a substitute at home to Stoke City.

With a lucrative contract well into its final season, raising funds by moving him on in January will be extremely difficult.

When asked on Tuesday if he expected to receive the financial backing he needed to make changes, Pulis replied: “We’ll see. He (chairman Dejphon Chansiri) has spent a hell of a lot of money on this football club over the past five years.”

As part of a rescue package from the Premier League, Championship clubs will collectively have access to £200m of interest-free loans from January but these are only designed to allow clubs to meet PAYE responsibilities.

Clubs across English football have suffered financially from a lack of gate receipts since March, whilst having to run the footballing sides of their operations since matches resumed in June. Hillsborough has not hosted fans since the March 4 FA Cup tie against Manchester City.

As expected, Sheffield was not lifted out of Tier 3 restrictions in the latest review, meaning games will remain behind closed doors for the rest of 2020.

Providing a rescue package has been politically difficult. The Government have not been prepared to help out league clubs because it believes there is enough money in the game, as evidenced by the huge transfer fees paid by Premier League clubs in the summer. For their part, the top-flight clubs are reluctant to pour money into badly-managed clubs which could allow them to win promotion and become competitors.

According to the latest available pre-Covid figures, Championship clubs spent more on wages than they brought in as income with the Owls one of the worst culprits.

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