Former Owl opens up about about time at S6

Aiden McGeady has reflected on his time at Sheffield Wednesday, including missing out on the 2016 play-off final against Hull City.

The winger had a short loan spell at Hillsborough in the second-half of that season but only made a handful of appearances and was not involved in the matchday squad for the final at Wembley.

Having played for Celtic, Spartak Moscow and Everton before The Owls, there was a lot of excitement about McGeady signing, but the move did not work out.

“I think it could have gone better,” he told The Star via BetBrain. “I arrived from Everton expecting to play because Carlos Carvalhal had tried to sign me before, so I thought it would be a perfect fit, but almost immediately I found myself on the bench.

“I'd start a game, get taken off at half-time, then maybe start again and the same thing would happen. I didn't feel I was playing badly enough for that to happen, so it became quite frustrating.

“Eventually I felt like, because I was only on loan, I was more disposable than the permanent players. I went there to play football, not sit on the bench, so in the end I decided it was best to cut the loan short.”

McGeady explained that in the weeks before the play-off semi-final win against Brighton he went to see Carvalhal to find out whether he had a realistic chance of forcing his way into his plans.

“He told me to keep training because there was always a possibility,” McGeady explained. “I trained well, but when I was left out again I decided there was no point staying another couple of weeks if I wasn't going to play. So I went back to Scotland before the final. Realistically, I probably wouldn't have been involved anyway.”

Despite his time at S6 only being brief, McGeady says he still monitors how Wednesday are getting on and was following their desperate financial situation last season.

“I do still look out for their results,” he added. “The bittersweet thing is that I've got a lot of friends in Sheffield who support Wednesday, so everyone was really excited when I signed. Unfortunately it just didn't work out.

“There are a lot of really good people at the club and I still keep an eye on how they're doing. I also saw everything that happened with the ownership situation over the last year. The owner was actually there when I signed, and he even chose my squad number himself because he believed in lucky numbers, but it clearly wasn't very lucky! Hopefully the club can move forward now because I don't think instability at ownership level is ever good for a football club.”