Long-serving Sheffield Wednesday captain Barry Bannan (left) joined Millwall in January to end a decade with the club.

Barring a highly unlikely series of results, administration-hit Sheffield Wednesday will become the first team in English Football League history to be relegated in February at some point in the next week.

The foundations for this relegation were set last summer when former owner Dejphon Chansiri's chaotic tenure came to a head with numerous missed wage payments. A large number of the senior squad and manager Danny Rohl left in the summer before the Owls were eventually placed into administration in October.

Two separate points deductions - totalling 18 points - followed, and it has always been a case of when, not if they went down from the Championship this season. A preferred bidder for the club was selected in December but the Owls remain in administration and are operating under tight restrictions, leaving them with a threadbare squad ill-equipped to compete at this level.

However, few would have thought relegation could come quite as early as this and, to make matters worse, it could in fact now be confirmed at bitter cross-city rivals Sheffield United on Sunday.

How the bottom of the Championship table looks before Blackburn face Preston on Friday.

If Sheffield Wednesday win all of their remaining 14 games of the season, they will finish the campaign on 35 points. Despite that, the Owls will be relegated before Sunday's derby if Blackburn Rovers avoid defeat against Preston North End on Friday and West Bromwich Albion beat Coventry City on Saturday.

However, if Blackburn are beaten, then a draw for Leicester at Stoke on Saturday, coupled with a West Brom win, will send the Owls down by virtue of the fact that Rovers and the Foxes meet on the final day of the season, guaranteeing that one of them will finish on at least 36 points.

Should things fall into place for the Owls, who are still on -7 points, they must then win at Bramall Lane to stop the 'R' from being placed next to their name this weekend. Winning a derby away from home is a tall task at the best of times, but when you consider that Wednesday's only win all season came at Portsmouth in September, they have lost their past nine games in the Championship, and have not so much as scored in the past six Steel City derbies, you get some idea of what Henrik Pedersen's beleaguered men are up against.