Danny Rohl ticks all the boxes of a modern manager – can Sheffield Wednesday keep him?

Danny Rohl is not a drinker, but this was a realization that forced him to make an exception.

Sheffield Wednesday will not succumb to the fate that has dogged them all season and will, improbably, be a Championship club again come August.

“You have to be thankful for the moment,” said Rohl, wet from a one-sided water fight with his players. “Normally I don’t drink but maybe a beer today. It’s going to be a long evening.”

And justifiably so.

A year on from their extraordinary promotion to the League One play-offs, they produced an equally miraculous story on Wednesday to avoid a relegation to English football’s third-placed side.

A 2-0 win away to Sunderland on the final day of the regular season brought them 30 points from their last 16 games. Only Ipswich Town, who celebrated automatic promotion to the Premier League on Wednesday, were doing the same to stay up, could better their comeback.

Wednesday’s players relished the moment at the Stadium of Light, dancing in front of the 2,000 traveling fans for 15 minutes after the full-time whistle, but it was Rohl’s crowning as one of the brightest youngsters in management. The German was pushed by the players to receive the plaudits which he was keen to share.

Rohl, who turned 35 last month, had never managed a club before arriving at Hillsborough in October, but by turning around a disillusioned, aimless group, he has caught the eye of many. A side who have won just one of their opening 18 league games this season, lost 13 of them and had two points from 10 matches, have moved three points clear of the relegation zone they had spent the last eight months at home.

“We should be very proud of our team and our club,” said Rohl, a former assistant at RB Leipzig, Southampton and Bayern Munich, whom he helped win the 2020 Champions League as part of Hansi Flick’s staff. “You can have ideas as a manager, but without your players, you can’t do that. It was a strength I never gave up.”

Could Rohl be Sunderland manager next season? (Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)

The bottom half of the Championship saw many come home with a wet sail, including Queens Park Rangers and Millwall, but on Wednesday they found an outfit that appeared beyond any of the strugglers.

Victories over Blackburn Rovers and West Bromwich Albion took Rohl’s side out of the bottom three in the final weeks of the season and secured the point they needed on the final day against the mid-table hosts and with nothing to play for, it didn’t seem never doubtful.

Jeopardy was banned from the Stadium of Light once Liam Palmer and Josh Windass capitalized on lax defending to score first-half goals. The rest became an implausibly cheerful procession to safety.

Three months ago, behind a winter transfer window that had frustrated Rohl, such an escape had become hard to imagine. A 4-0 defeat away to Huddersfield Town, a Yorkshire club who Vol play League One football next season, on Wednesday February 3 left eight points adrift of safety with 16 games remaining.

They may have hit other bumps along the way, such as a 6-0 demolition by Ipswich in March, but Rohl is tracing their survival from the days following the Huddersfield defeat.

“We showed a four- or five-minute video about what it means to be successful, then we showed the players the last 16 games,” he said. “Then I had a very emotional conversation with the players. Some players were very emotional in this meeting, but then I was looking forward to it. It wasn’t easy picking up other guys, but we did it as a team.”

Wednesday’s subsequent revival was a glowing endorsement of Rohl’s coaching and communication skills. A team that spent half the season looking short of Championship quality was persuaded to find more, to play with more intensity and effort.

Rohl has forced improvements from young and old in the group he inherited from Xisco Munoz, appointed in the summer following the departure from Wembley of promotion winner Darren Moore. The club’s low-budget January deal, overseen by head of recruitment Kevin Beadell, also proved telling, with striker Ike Ugbo, goalkeeper James Beadle and winger Ian Poveda all playing valuable roles on loan.

Rohl gradually instilled faith and resilience. Wednesday would lose just three of their last 14 games, fewer than second-tier champions Leicester City and play-off sides Leeds United and Southampton.

And all this played out against a background of hot unrest.

Protests against Wednesday’s long-time owner Dejphon Chansiri became common at the start of the year, with fans marching to the club’s Hillsborough stadium carrying signs calling on the Thai businessman to sell.

Thousands of yellow leaflets, distributed by the 1867 Group, an independent set of fans named for the year the club was founded, who came together to protest against the owner, were seized during the home match with fellow Birmingham City, a few days after that loss to Huddersfield.

“Out of touch, out of time,” they said, next to an image of Chansiri.

Located around the earth now #swfc pic.twitter.com/8ta8tAcUlG

— The 1867 Group. (@The1867Group) March 8, 2024

A truce has been called for the final weeks of the season to avoid distractions, but opposition to Chansiri will not go away. Rohl merely plastered over the cracks of a club so often made to look dysfunctional by their owner.

How long Rohl chooses to stay is the inevitable worry now for Wednesday supporters.

Although he still has 12 months to run on his contract, the German made it clear that things must change at Hillsborough. He wants to see strategy and smart infrastructure off the field. Chansiri, who opted to part ways with Moore three weeks after winning the League One play-off final, will be looking to reassure fans ahead of a scheduled meeting with Rohl next week.

“I’m not going to talk about my future today,” Rohl said after Saturday’s win. “I want to enjoy myself and then we’ll see what we can do about it. I know you want to know more, but it’s important to enjoy this evening. We will see. I have an idea of ​​what the direction might be, but just having an idea is not enough.”

Rohl has climbing stock and is understood to have appealed to Sunderland, whose final 10 weeks of the season have been overseen by interim manager Mike Dodds following the sacking of December appointee Michael Beale.

They are not alone either. Rohl ticks all the boxes of the modern game and the last seven months would indicate that there is still more to come from him.

(Top photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)