Henrik Pedersen is the head coach to lead Sheffield Wednesday into a new era.

That was the unequivocal message delivered by the club’s new sporting director Simon Wilson and the consortium who rescued the Owls from near oblivion on Monday night.

In his first public comments since joining from Stockport County, Wilson was put on the spot about Pedersen’s future as Sheffield Wednesday begin rebuilding from the ashes of the catastrophic Dejphon Chansiri reign, by an audience of corporate guests at Hillsborough.

Pedersen was a stoic figure in the dugout as the Owls won just two of 46 games in a Championship season dragged through the mud by administration, player departures and a protracted takeover.

Henrik Pedersen enjoyed a first home win of a torrid season at the final attempt and has now been backed by the incoming sporting director at Sheffield Wednesday.

placeholder image — Henrik Pedersen enjoyed a first home win of a torrid season at the final attempt and has now been backed by the incoming sporting director at Sheffield Wednesday.

Asked whether he believes the Dane is the man to continue leading Wednesday, Wilson said: “Yes I do.

“The challenge last season was incredible for the coach and the coaching staff. They were able to create wins without winning, they weren’t able to win on the pitch but they were able to win in another way by keeping and bringing people together.

"What I look for is when times are hard, how do you keep people together in that moment? You look at how did they, how did he, lead in that moment. How do you keep people buying-in for the greater good and not just for themselves?

"Henrik and the guys did an incredible job with this.”

New Sheffield Wednesday owner David Storch.

And Wilson - who has been brought on board by new chief executive David Bruce and co-owners David and Michael Storch, and Tom Costin - has already met with Pedersen and begun planning the building of a squad of players he wants.

That squad – hollowed out after a wretched year - currently stands at just a handful of players.

Wilson said: “My first question was how are we going to play? How do you want to play? He just really excited me with the way he spoke about how he wants to build a team, what he wants to do when we’re playing at Hillsborough, how he wants to go and attack games and how he wants to score every time we have the ball.

"He wants us to be a very attacking team.

“My job is to give him the tools to go out and play exactly the way he wants to play. We’ve got a top quality person and you can’t go too for wrong with that in life. It’s about giving him the tools to go and execute the way he wants to do it.”