The 30-year-old is one of several senior players approaching the end of their deals and despite an ongoing issue with injury niggles has positioned himself as a foremost figure in Danny Röhl’s side as the German looks to build a front line in a dynamic, energetic image. Windass joined the club from Wigan Athletic after an initial loan stint back in 2020 and has to date 54 direct goal involvements in 129 Owls appearances, scoring 37 times and claiming 17 assists.
A former Rangers man, Windass was producing some of his finest form in Wednesday colours in recent weeks before suffering an injury in last weeks’ midweek draw with Watford. It is not yet known how long he’s expected to be out for.
But sources suggest he can expect to be the subject of fresh contract talks with the club in the coming weeks, with Röhl having long since maintained that conversations would be had with those he wanted to keep on at the club looking ahead to the summer and beyond. Di’Shon Bernard is another player the club is keen to keep. The Wednesday manager has maintained all decisions will be a two-way street and that players may well wish to wait to see what division the club is playing in next season.
Windass has been the subject of interest from a number of clubs in recent transfer windows, with MLS club Real Salt Lake believed to have made a transfer offer in the last weeks. Argentine side Atletico Talleres are another side understood to be admirers of the forward and who could, as a foreign side, agree pre-contract terms at any point before his contract expires in the summer as per FIFA rules.
He told The Star last month, before he had received an indication of whether talks would take place: “To be honest I just let my agent deal with that sort of stuff, but obviously I know I’m out of contract and when a player of my quality is on a free I know stuff like that is going to happen… I’m just trying to concentrate on playing well and scoring goals here, and I’ve said that if I was thinking of signing a pre-contract or anything like that then I told Danny he’d be the first one I’d go to. But that’s not the case.
“I’ve had a good four years here. I just want to keep playing my football and I feel like I’m playing well. Hopefully if I keep doing that then I’ll start scoring the goals I know I can do well. I’m free in the summer, so I’ve obviously had offers. It’s got nothing to do with location, it’s all about the football. I genuinely just want to concentrate on playing well – I know the better I play the more I might get offered, for instance, and the better I play the better it is for everybody.”
The Owls attacker sat out of Saturday’s horror 4-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town through injury, prompting Owls boss Danny Röhl to admit the full scale of his issue will not be known just yet and that the club will continue to monitor his condition on a day-to-day basis. It seems unlikely he’ll feature in Tuesday’s FA Cup trip to Coventry City.
“With Josh it is not always easy,” Röhl told The Star. “He has problems with the muscle and it has happened again. With a muscle injury you must take a look and see day to day. Sometimes you can say, like a knock, that three days will be enough. The muscle is more about the feeling, how quickly he improves in the area. It could be short-term or it could be a little bit longer. I cross my fingers it is just a short-term injury.”