New Sheffield Wednesday owners sent Hillsborough warning by ex-Owls player | OneFootball

A former Sheffield Wednesday star has spoken out on the work that needs to be done by a new owner, and he believes it to be a long-term job.

Former Sheffield Wednesday star Michael Gray has spoken out on the amount of work that will have to be carried out on Sheffield Wednesday by a new owner, and he doesn't believe that getting the club back on their feet will be a quick job.

A 3-0 home defeat against Derby County on Monday night merely confirmed what has been common knowledge about Sheffield Wednesday all season, that the threadbare squad of players that they've had to play with throughout the 2025-26 isn't good enough to survive in the Championship.

Monday's result left Wednesday on -9 points, now 29 adrift of safety. Even without the points deductions applied by the EFL as a result of their financial mismanagement and subsequent collapse into administration, they would still be eight points adrift at the foot of the table and eleven from safety.

But it is also common knowledge that rebuilding the first-team squad is only part of the work that needs to be carried out by the new owner of the club. Following years of infrastructural neglect, Sheffield Wednesday need renovation from top to bottom, if the club is to fulfil the potential which attracted so many potential buyers to the club in the first place.

Former Wednesday star Michael Gray believes it might take up to six years to renovate the club

The size of the job awaiting the club's next owner has now been laid bare by former Sheffield Wednesday star Michael Gray. Speaking to the Sheffield Star, Gray said that, "It might take five to six years to get Sheffield Wednesday back to where they deserve to be, which is certainly no lower than the Championship."

Gray believes that the work required at Hillsborough extends far beyond rebuilding the team: "The training ground needs more than a lick of paint. The stadium has barely changed since I played there 25, 30 years ago. And it used to be an incredible stadium, one of the best."

But Gray does also believe that the potential of the club means that better days are ahead, even if it may take a while to get there: "If they can do that, then there's a sleeping giant waiting to just jump out at everybody, to get back to where it deserves to be, and I really hope that happens because it's a great football club."

Sheffield Wednesday have fallen behind as a result of years of underinvestment in their facilities

It's certainly true to say that there is a lot of work that needs to be carried out on bringing Sheffield Wednesday's infrastructure into the 21st century. In May, it was reported that the club were intending "significant investment" to upgrade facilities at their Middlewood Road training ground. Almost exactly a month later, it was reported that the training ground was not ready as the players returned for pre-season training.

A similar situation played out at Hillsborough itself. It was reported at the end of July that the council had placed a prohibition notice on the North Stand there, temporarily banning supporters from using it, after "extensive corrosion" was found in its roof beams. The work was carried out, and the stand was open for their first home match of the season, but it was a close call.

These two stories were emblematic of what Sheffield Wednesday fans already knew, that years of a lack of investment in the infrastructure of the club meant that a lot of work would have to be carried out in order to bring the club's facilities up to date. Two of the stands at Hillsborough - the North Stand and the West Stand - were built in the 1960s, while the South Stand was last substantially redeveloped for Euro 96 and the Kop End was converted to be all-seater to comply with The Taylor Report in 1993 by bolting seats onto the terrace which already existed there.

Whether it will take six years to complete such a renovation depends on a range of factors, the biggest of which is the extent to which any new owner is committed to such a project and how much money they're prepared to pay to get the work done. Building an entire new stadium requires years of planning and other work, but redeveloping an existing stadium could be done in a modular way, replacing one part at a time.

The most striking aspect of the North Stand story was that this was not about producing a best-in-class experience for the fans. It was about bringing the stand up to the minimum safety level required to be able to use it.

This in itself was proof of how far the club had fallen behind in terms of their facilities, demonstrating that, while the team's return to the Championship following relegation could - if they're not subjected to a further 15-point deduction over their administration, which has already been confirmed by the administrators as extremely unlikely - be relatively quick, rebuilding the club in an overall sense will almost certainly be a longer-term project which will require deep pockets.