What Barry Bannan and Liam Palmer could achieve together at Sheffield Wednesday is extraordinary | OneFootball

Barry Bannan is closing in on a Sheffield Wednesday milestone, with Liam Palmer also eyeing another in the 2026/27 League One season...

Sheffield Wednesday have been fortunate enough to witness remarkable longevity from two of their most important modern players, with Liam Palmer and Barry Bannan both approaching the twilight stages of careers that have become synonymous with the club.

Liam Palmer has already surpassed 500 appearances for the Owls, while Barry Bannan is closing in rapidly on the same landmark and could potentially reach it before Christmas in League One. The pair are now attempting to achieve one final major feat together on top of that, though.

That goal is helping Sheffield Wednesday climb out of League One. With both players approaching the latter years of their careers, their combined legacy at Hillsborough is already extraordinary, but there could still be time for one more chapter.

Two players reaching 500 appearances together for Sheffield Wednesday would be extraordinary

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The possibility of Sheffield Wednesday having two players with 500 or more appearances for the club in the same modern-day squad is difficult to overstate in terms of how incredible it is.

Palmer became only the fourth player in Wednesday's history to reach the landmark earlier this year, joining an incredibly exclusive group, and Bannan is now sitting on 486 appearances and rapidly closing in.

In an era when players regularly change clubs after only a few seasons, seeing two teammates accumulate 500 appearances for the same club is extraordinary. It speaks to their longevity, consistency, and importance to Wednesday over more than a decade.

Even more remarkable is that they are doing it together, rather than simply occupying different generations of the club's history. It is a statistical achievement that would be remarkable for any club, let alone one with Wednesday's history.

Bannan is sat on 486, but Palmer has 516, with the versatile defender having played exclusively for Sheffield Wednesday permanently, after a loan with Tranmere Rovers back in 2012/13.

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The scale of what Bannan and Palmer have achieved becomes even clearer when looking at Wednesday's all-time appearance list.

Andrew Wilson leads the way with 546 appearances between 1900 and 1920, while Jack Brown, Alan Finney, and several other members of the top 10 all played many decades ago.

Palmer sits second, Bannan is fifth on 486, while Wednesday icon Kevin Pressman is the only other genuinely recent player in the top 10, with 478 appearances between 1985 and 2004.

The majority of the rest are figures from the first half of the 20th century. That makes Palmer and Bannan genuine modern-day Wednesday legends, even if it highlights how long they have been below the Premier League and fighting things out in the EFL.

Liam Palmer and Barry Bannan have one final challenge to complete together

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There is another reason these milestones could carry even greater significance in 2026/27. Palmer and Bannan are the last two survivors from the Wednesday side that won promotion from League One in 2023, and now they are trying to repeat the trick at the other end of their careers.

Both played key roles in that season, especially during the play-offs, but neither has an enormous amount of time left at Hillsborough, with Palmer and Bannan set to be 35 and 37 respectively by the end of the season, while both are also out of contract. There are therefore no guarantees that either will remain beyond this campaign.

Palmer could even finish the season as Wednesday's all-time appearance leader, while Bannan could realistically climb as high as third before the end of the season. If both achieve those milestones and then depart at the end of their contracts, it would be some way to sign off.

They would have left their mark on Sheffield Wednesday's history, helped deliver one promotion already, and potentially played a part in another before calling time on their remarkable Hillsborough careers. It's a significant season for both in that sense.