Taxing times for Irvine as he looks to boost relegated Sheffield Wednesday

It is now 12 weeks and three days since Irvine and Sheffield Wednesday suffered the agony of relegation from the Championship and 10 days before the start of the new League One campaign.

Irvine, 52, had never previously been relegated as a player or manager and was drafted in by the Owls in January to get the club out of trouble.

Despite a healthy return of four wins from his opening five games, Irvine's men picked up only one win in the last 12 games and were unable to secure the victory needed at home on the final day against Crystal Palace to stay up.

The vast majority of Wednesday supporters do not hold the Scotsman responsible for their return to League One, however, and firmly believe he is still the right man for the job.

Thanks to generous backing from the Hillsborough board, Irvine and the Owls are also ranked among the favourites to win promotion by the bookmakers.

"The pain of relegation has still not gone away and I don't think it ever will," Irvine admits. "It had never happened to me before and whenever it is mentioned I feel my blood boiling. What I have to do now is try and use that feeling as the motivation to make sure we bounce back as quickly as possible."

Although the Owls were served with a winding up order last month by HM Revenue and Customs, the bill was due to be settled this week.

Both the club and its main backers, the Co-operative Bank, immediately issued statements denying that the club was in any serious financial trouble.

"I don't think we had done anything different to what other clubs had done in the past in terms of delaying a payment to HMRC," commented Irvine. "But they are tightening things up now which is why we were affected. I have lost no sleep over that at all."

However, there have also been other big shocks to contend with during his first six months at Hillsborough.

The Owls had a confident young chairman in Lee Strafford when Irvine was first unveiled and there was also talk of imminent investment from America.

In the weeks immediately after relegation, Strafford resigned and the proposed investment shrank to unacceptable levels.

Significantly, the shocks have not led to the onset of a crisis. Far from it. Strafford has been replaced, on an interim basis, by former manager Howard Wilkinson and, thanks to support from the bank, the Owls have still emerged as one of the biggest spenders in League One.

"I knew it wasn't going to be plain sailing here," insists Irvine. " But Howard is probably the perfect chairman; someone who has been a manager and doesn't want to be the manager now.

"I didn't know what was going to happen when the season ended but I have had fantastic backing," he added. "Many people are saying that the squad now looks stronger than it did last season. On paper it does, but it is how we perform that will be the important thing."

Strikers Clinton Morrison, Neil Mellor and Paul Heffernan have all agreed to drop out of the Championship to play for the Owls this season. The only unwanted departure is that of goalkeeper Lee Grant in a 1m move to Burnley.

According to Irvine, the calibre of his summer signings underlines the fact that Wednesday are still regarded as a big club – albeit one currently punching below its weight.

"I wouldn't have liked to try and do the same exercise this summer if I had still been at Preston," he says, with reference to his previous employers. "Preston is a fantastic club but, with all due respect, the size of this club has really made my job easier. The number of players who have said they wanted to play for Sheffield Wednesday has been mind-blowing."

Irvine wants to be judged on results this season rather than those that have gone before.

"I didn't get the chance to put my own team together in the Championship," he says. "Basically, I had to work with what I had apart from bringing in Eddie Nolan on loan.

"I am not going to shout my mouth off and say we 'will' get back up but, if we do our best, I think we have a chance," he added. "Only two clubs have gone back up automatically in the last five years (Norwich City and Leicester City) and only one has done it via the play-offs (Scunthorpe United). Out of a total of 15 clubs, the percentages don't suggest you are going to go straight back up, they suggest you are going to stay or go down further. But that is something we will try to avoid."

INS AND OUTS

IN: Clinton Morrison pictured (Coventry City), Neil Mellor (Preston, loan), Gary Teale (Derby County), Paul Heffernan (Doncaster Rovers), Chris Sedgwick (Preston), Giles Coke (Motherwell), Daniel Jones (Wolves), Jon Otsemobor (Southampton).

OUT: Lee Grant (Burnley, undisclosed fee), Leon Clarke (QPR), Frank Simek (Carlisle), Francis Jeffers, Akpo Sodje (Charlton), Michael Gray (retired), Etienne Esajas, Sean McAllister.

Last season: 22nd, Championship.

YP verdict: Runners-up. Life in the Premier League is a faded memory for Wednesday who have dropped into League One for the second time in five years. Debts may be stuck in the region of 25m and there is still no sign of new investment yet there is optimism at Hillsborough this summer. Manager Alan Irvine has been handed one of the best budgets in the division. In Clinton Morrison and Neil Mellor, Irvine has secured two strikers with proven records at a higher level. It will be important, however, to sign a solid replacement for goalkeeper Lee Grant.