Last Rohl of dice keeps the Owls up
DANNY Rohl spoke of his pride at his Sheffield Wednesday side’s achievement after a 2-0 win over Sunderland confirmed the club’s survival in the Sky Bet Championship.
Wednesday looked to be down and out when they won just one of their opening 19 league matches, with Rohl’s appointment in mid-october a last roll of the dice.
However, the former Bayern Munich assistant has overseen a remarkable turnaround, with the Owls losing just three of their last 14 matches to haul themselves to safety.
With all of their relegation rivals winning, they needed to win at the Stadium of Light on the final day to avoid the drop, with first-half goals from Liam Palmer and Josh Windass securing their success.
Rohl said: “I do not think it is normal to stay in the league when you have just won one game in 19 match days from the beginning of the season. It says a lot about the mentality of our players that they have turned things around.
“I have to say ‘thank you’ to our chairman because he is the guy who gave me the opportunity for my first job as a manager. We should not forget this, and we should be proud of the whole club.
“There has been a real togetherness in the six months that I have been here, and we all have to be happy and proud about what we have achieved.
“When I arrived, the players were open-minded and we raised our intensity straight away. We had ups and downs, but we always showed a good reaction.
“We said we maybe needed eight wins with 16 games to go, but if you look now, eight wins would not have been enough.
“We took nine wins from those 16 games, and I think the form table from those games shows us in the top three or four in the league. That says a lot.”