Danny Rohl, the manager of Sheffield Wednesday, is on Middlesbrough’s final shortlist of potential successors to Michael Carrick.
According to a story published in The Northern Echo on June 10, Rohl was among the top contenders to succeed Boro as manager, along with Rob Edwards and Steve Cooper.
After keeping Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship in 2023–2024 and leading the team back into the top half and play-offs this past season, the 36-year-old has received a lot of accolades for his work as manager since moving to Hillsborough in October 2023.
As such, he’s built himself a reputation as being one of the most talented, exciting and respected young coaches in the game, and as a result, he would surely be a hugely popular choice among Middlesbrough supporters if he is indeed to become the club’s new manager.
It’s not uncommon for coaches to poach players from their former clubs upon taking up a new role at a different club, so, Football League World identifies two Sheffield Wednesday players that Rohl could bring with him to Teesside if handed the Boro job this summer.
Djeidi Gassama
One of Sheffield Wednesday’s standout players in 2024/25, Djeidi Gassama has established himself as one of the brightest young talents in the EFL.
The 21-year-old joined the Owls in the summer of 2023, signing from French giants and newly crowned Champions League winners, Paris Saint-Germain.
After a solid debut 2023/24 campaign at Hillsborough, Gassama enjoyed a real breakthrough 2024/25 season under the management of Rohl this year.
| Gassama’s 24/25 Championship stats – per FotMob | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appearances | Goals | Assists | Successful dribbles | Fouls won | Duels won | Avg. match rating |
| 43 | 7 | 1 | 66 | 110 | 242 | 6.8/10 |
His 110 fouls won in the second tier ranked him in the top 100 percentile of his second tier positional peers, meanwhile his 242 duels won placed him in the top 98.1 percentile, and his 66 successful dribbles ranked him in the top 96.9 percentile, per FotMob.
Capable of operating anywhere across the forward line, Gassama is a true Swiss Army Knife of a player, and will be one that Sheffield Wednesday would certainly loath to lose this summer.
However, from a Middlesbrough perspective, he could provide stellar competition on either flank, and with an inconsistent Delano Burgzorg, an injury-prone pair of Riley McGree and Marcuss Forss, and a player in Morgan Whittaker who hasn’t hit the ground running on Teesside, it’s not hard to see the Flying Frenchman quickly cementing a starting role at the Riverside.
Rohl evidently had a huge impact on his development this past season, and so it’s likely that the PSG academy graduate would be highly interested in working under him once again.
Pierce Charles
This one could prove a tough deal for Middlesbrough to complete, but you’d have to think should Rohl be installed as Boro boss, he’d want to give it a try.
After all, it was Rohl who handed Pierce Charles his first extended run in Wednesday’s first-team at the end of last season.
Indeed, the 19-year-old goalkeeper started all the club’s final eight Championship games of the 2024/25 campaign, and the Northern Ireland international was largely very impressive.
For a teenage shot-stopper, Charles looked remarkably calm, composed and mature in the Owls goal, and whilst there was the odd mistake, his end-of-season cameo was an overwhelming success – he even denied Tommy Conway from the penalty spot on matchday 44.
As such, he looks set to enter the 2025/26 season as the number one goalkeeper at Hillsborough, but Middlesbrough may well be on the lookout for one of those too.
Mark Travers has returned to parent club Bournemouth with seemingly no prospect of making a permanent move to Teesside this summer, and academy graduate Sol Brynn wasn’t able to truly cement himself as the starting goalkeeper thanks to a season-ending dislocated shoulder injury, which he picked up against Wednesday on Boxing Day last year.
Inevitably, word of his exploits has reached Premier League clubs, but as exemplified in the Rav van den Berg signing, Middlesbrough have proven they can beat top clubs to the signature of a talented, in-demand young player such as Charles.
Given the financial and other off-the-field issues at Sheffield Wednesday at the moment, the club could be forced into cashing in on some of their most saleable assets this summer, and Charles would definitely fall into that category.
Therefore, the chance to reunite with the coach who believed in him enough to hand him his big Wednesday break, and have a big chance of becoming Boro’s starting goalkeeper, would surely be of interest to him.
Pierce Charles
