Mandaric still retains Premier dream for Wednesday

The Owls owner and chairman has been in prolonged talks with several would-be buyers of the club, including a consortium led by Chinese businessman Sammy Yu, but insists no firm offers are in the pipeline and he has been frustrated by what he labels “tyre-kickers”.

Heading into Saturday’s South Yorkshire derby with Barnsley - with the Owls in the relegation zone without a win this season - the 75-year-old former Portsmouth and Leicester City owner still maintains a Premier League target.

“This club needs to be fed financially, until we at least go to the Premier League.

“I don’t want to sell the club. But I think that this club is a big club to even stay in the Championship. It needs an acceleration to reach the Premier League.

“Maybe somebody would come in and be more aggressive than me and more capable of pushing the club forward and I’m trying to accommodate those groups to do that.

“I try as much as I can, I devoted my time, my ambition and energy, but it needs more than that.

“I realise this club needs to go a lot more aggressively forward.

“I will do my best, I will be ambitious, I will try every which way to get back in the race with results and our goal remains to go to the Premier League.

“As long as I’m here that will be my goal and my objective. I’m not going to let this club go anywhere else, but be stabilized and hopefully take it to the Premier League.”

Full interview in Friday’s Yorkshire Post newspaper.