Sheffield Wednesday could be saying goodbye to a handful of players in next month’s transfer window.
Sheffield Wednesday have a fairly inflated first-team squad right now.
But it’s not exactly one brimming with quality and so Danny Rohl will be hoping to replace quantity with quality in January.
And the German boss has now said that, whilst he would prefer permanent signings, the loan market is still an option.
The Owls currently have five players on loan; Jeff Hendrick, Devis Vasquez, Ashley Fletcher, John Buckley, and Momo Diaby.
The latter two are injured right now, but all five have barely been in contention under Rohl.
Writing for The Star, Joe Crann suggests that Sheffield Wednesday could look to terminate some of these loan deals and open up spaces for some new loan names to come in.
And that’s been echoed by Rohl who told The Star:
“The loan market will be an option. We need loan players. In January you want to sign a player for the future and not just six months, and we know what we want to have. But we know who is available and not available, so loan players will an option.
“But we have to prepare for the next weeks, we have some players on our list, and I think we’ll start now the communication with them. We also need to speak with players in my squad, and those conversations are always not easy. I always say that I see a human as well as a player, and it’s never a thing between me and the human – just the player, the manager and the club.
“I try to be very honest, and that’s not always easy, because it’s hard to say some things. But I want to try this, and we’ll do this in the next weeks.”
Could Sheffield Wednesday be in store for a loan reshuffle next month?
Crann’s suggestion, and Rohl’s comments on the loan market and his current loan players, suggests that Sheffield Wednesday will look to shuffle the pack next month.
None of the Owls’ currently loan players are in contention, though Diaby looks like he could come into Rohl’s thinking if he can make his return to first-team action in the New Year.
Of course, the decision isn’t solely Wednesday’s, and it could be costly to terminate some of these loan deals.
But if Sheffield Wednesday could possibly offload names like Fletcher and Hendrick in particular, it could open up some space in the wage bill for Rohl to bring in some more useful names, and names more suited to his style of play.
Buckley still seems like he has a point to prove at Hillsborough and under Rohl, he could eventually come good.
But his injury, coming right before the January window too, throw his Wednesday future up into the air, after previous reports that he’d be recalled in the New Year anyway.
January needs to be a busy month for Sheffield Wednesday and expect the loan market to be a heavily utilised one, with the financial situation at the club still a difficult one given previous claims by owner Dejphon Chansiri about bills and debt and staff wages and so on.
The Owls go up against Cardiff City in the Championship later today.