Sheffield Wednesday: Hope for the future, but the difficult present remains

For Palmer, the past few months have been a personal and professional challenge.

The Scottish defender, who was only known on Wednesday as a permanent club, with almost 500 appearances to his name, watched “helplessly” as good friends exercised their right to leave, angry at unpaid wages and the direction of travel.

But as the team’s PFA representative, the 34-year-old was left to deal with awkward questions from anxious players for which he rarely had an answer.

Palmer and club captain Barry Bannan managed to arrange a Zoom conversation with Chancery in the summer, hoping to get some clarity but received none.

“The owner emphasized that he was doing his best, but we were asking questions that he ultimately had no answers for,” Palmer said.

“But we felt we had to ask them on behalf of the players.

“It would have been nice to hear, ‘You’ll get your salary at this time and the money will come,’ but he didn’t have the answers. But I would have rather had that answer than not asked him at all.”

The match with Middlesbrough proved to be one of the worst moments of his career, played in front of almost empty stands, reminiscent of the depressing times of Covid when playing football felt more like a job than ever before.

Uniting players and fans once again at Hillsborough gives Palmer hope for at least the remainder of a season that will remain challenging.

He said: “Football dies without fans, and for me Wednesday night was difficult.”

“It took me back to the COVID season, where there was a void where everything was.

“This has fanned the fire a little bit within the group to use that little light of positivity to help us through the next few weeks and months.”