If Mike Ashley finally seals Sheffield Wednesday takeover - AI thinks these 2 things will happen | OneFootball

Football League World has asked AI what will happen if Mike Ashley buys Sheffield Wednesday, and here's what it told us.

Mike Ashley is one of those in pole position in the race to buy Sheffield Wednesday, so Football League World have asked AI what he will do should his bid for the club be successful.

With Christmas now fast approaching, there has still been no indication of whom the new owners of Sheffield Wednesday will be. The statement issued by administrator Kris Wigfield on the 19th December said little more than that "We will provide updates as soon as we are able to do so without jeopardising the process", with no indication having been given of who will ultimately prove successful.

One of the favourites to win this race is the former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, who's already had a £20 million bid to buy the club rejected but returned with an improved offer. Ashley has a history of involvement in football going back to his 2007 purchase of Newcastle, so Football League World have asked AI what are the two most likely things to happen in the event that he is successful in his bid to buy Sheffield Wednesday.

Here's what it told us.

AI predicts a "commercial overhaul centred on cost control and retail branding"

In the first of its predictions for the future of Sheffield Wednesday under Mike Ashley, AI predicts that the commercial side of the club will be the first thing to change.

It predicts that Ashley would seek to slash operating costs, through reducing staff levels, examining contracts to see which could be changed, and through renegotiating with the club's suppliers. AI predicts that Ashley would look to stabilise the club's cash flow position first, "even if it’s unpopular."

It also predicts that - as happened at both Newcastle United and Rangers, where he held a minority shareholding - there would changes to the club shop, sponsorship deals and pricing "before anything football-related improves," which may alarm Wednesday fans who are aware of the substantial overhauling that is necessary to be carried out on team itself.

The close alignment of the football clubs at which he has been involved is something of an Ashley motif. It happened with Sports Direct at both Newcastle and Rangers - where he held a minority shareholding - and was very unupopular at both clubs.

AI's second prediction is "a hard reset on football operations"

Most Sheffield Wednesday fans would agree that their team needs a "hard reset on football operations", but whether the changes that AI predicts that Ashley would bring would amount ot the sort of hard reset that they would have in mind is something of an open question.

AI predicts that the one of the first people to be worried, should he take ownership of the club, could be manager Henrik Pedersen. "Review (or replace) the manager and senior football staff" is described as something that would likely happen "very early on", and that this would be accompanied by "a strict wage ceiling", with a move toward short-term contracts, loans, and “value” signings rather than ambitious spending on new players.

Such has been the paucity of players at Pedersen's disposal, it's almost impossible to say whether he would be the right man to lead the team forward on the pitch. Sheffield Wednesday's league position is dismal - and they'd still be bottom of the Championship table even without the points deductions that have left them on a negative points tally - but there are questions to be asked over whether sacking Pedersen and bringing in a replacement would be more cost-effective or not.

On the playing front, AI says that "any existing high earners or long contracts would come under scrutiny quickly", which could be bad news for Barry Bannan, Dominic Iorfa, Nathaniel Chalobah, Jamal Lowe and Max Lowe, who, according to Capology, are all on £15,000-a-week and with contracts that are due to expire this coming summer.

There are at present no guarantees that Mike Ashley will win the race to own Sheffield Wednesday, and there are certainly no guarantees that AI's predictions would be anywhere near what would happen in the eventuality that he did. But these predictions made are based on the way in which Ashley has acted before in the game, and as such they cannot be discounted, even though there remains a way to go before anything final is confirmed about the future of the club.