Mel Sterland tells Sheffield Wednesday's next owners to stand by Henrik Pedersen

The Owls administrators are in the process of selecting a "preferred bidder" to buy the Championship club. New owners have a habit of bringing in new managers but even with pressure growing on Pedersen, Sterling is squarely behind him.

Pedersen came to Hillsborough as part of Danny Rohl's backroom staff in October 2023, and stayed when the German left in the summer, taking over at Rangers shortly afterwards.

The 47-year-old's decision to return after his contract expired at the peak of the crisis under then-owner Dejphon Chansiri earnt Pedersen a lot of supporter goodwill as well as the manager's job, but it is being tested now.

Monday’s feeble 3-0 televised defeat at home to Derby County extended the club’s winless run to 14 games. The players were booed off at half-time whereas the full-time whistle was met with an air of resignation by the few home fans left in Hillsborough.

The counter-argument is that a club so badly ravaged by Chansiri's mismanagement could hardly expect to perform much better, and that Pedersen deserves the chance to show what he can do with a competitive squad.

"This manager, I love him, I think he's a great guy," said former right-back Sterland.

"I've met him a couple of times and obviously he's got his hands tied with 18 points taken off.

"I'd stick with the manager.

"I think he needs a chance when everybody comes in and they've got a lot of money and they might be able to fetch players in. Who they are would be down to the manager."

Seeing the Owls' decline under Chansiri hurt Sterland, who played top-division football for them, but he is optimistic now the Thai businessman has gone.

"I captained Sheffield Wednesday, I got promotion with Sheffield Wednesday, and to see how the football club was being run was absolutely appalling," said Sterland.

"I'm not going to call him a chairman because he wasn't, he was useless. He was never a chairman, never a businessman, he knew nowt about football, he disrespected everybody.

"It's absolutely fantastic he's gone and the club's hopefully moving forward.

"I text Barry Bannan quite a lot just tell him to keep going, he's a great professional and they've just got to keep going now the club's moving forward, hopefully.

"We just need somebody to buy the club who's got plenty of money and and takes it forward now because it is a big football club.

"The ground needs work doing to it but you don't need to do owt about the fans because the fans are magnificent, they turn up and spend their money

"Against Sheffield United there were 30,000 there which is not bad or two teams who were at the bottom of the league.

"That's what they're building on.

"Fingers crossed it's going to go in the right direction

"It's a massive football club, the crowds are magnificent. If you're going to run it properly it's be a club you can go far with."