Sheffield Wednesday: Lucas Joao on why he had to leave Hillsborough

The Owls forward has joined Blackburn Rovers until the end of the season having fallen well down the pecking order at Hillsborough following the arrival of Sam Winnall from Barnsley.

With the possibility of yet another striker coming in today as the transfer window closes, Joao admits he needed to get away to ensure he gets more game time.

“I am excited to meet my new colleagues and to play for Blackburn,” said Joao, who made 12 appearances this season scoring just one goal. “I hope everything goes well and I’m looking forward to helping Rovers climb up the table.

“I spoke with the manager and Blackburn Rovers seems to provide the perfect conditions for becoming a better player and I want to help the team, so that’s why I have joined. Sheffield Wednesday have a lot of strikers who have a lot of quality, so I felt I needed to move away to play more and progress.

“Blackburn Rovers have given me this opportunity and I need to enjoy it and most importantly, play well.”

Rovers boss Owen Coyle was delighted to snap up Joao until the end of the seaosn, claiming that he has tried to sign the Portuguese international on more than one occasion already.

"Lucas Joao is a player that I've admired for the last couple of years and I've actually tried to get him to Blackburn Rovers already on a couple of occasions," said Coyle. "So to be able to bring it to fruition now, we're delighted. He's a young striker, he's quick, he's strong, he's got great technical ability and he has scope to get even better

"With that in mind, you can never have enough goalscorers at your football club and we want to make sure until the end of the season that we have that talent in that area to score us goals to try and win us games, and Lucas Joao will certainly help us to do that."