Could Haydon Roberts interest hint towards Darren Moore’s future transfer plan at Sheffield Wednesday?

Darren Moore, we were told, was a manager who would prioritise young loanees ahead of all else in the transfer market, his contacts in the upper echelons of the academy system a key to what he may want to build at S6.

It had worked at Doncaster Rovers, where – on the basis of how they have got on without him this season – he wildly overachieved.

There he brought in bright young things from Arsenal, Wolves, Spurs, Villa and Crystal Palace in his first season. In the second? They came from Man City, Arsenal again, Southampton and Celtic.

We know that Wednesday missed out on targets in the summer while the club wriggled around under the terms of a transfer embargo that gave rivals a 10-week head start in the transfer market.

How many enquiries for players of Haydon Roberts profile and calibre – a player Wednesday hope to sign – we don’t know.

Like Wednesday players Dennis Adeniran and Jaden Brown before him, 19-year-old Roberts is a former England youth international selected at a time of great success for the national team. He is highly rated by his Brighton manager Graham Potter and has spent this season training up against the likes of Neal Maupay, Leandro Trossard and Adam Lallana.

There are no guarantees on the success of any signing, but the addition of Roberts would be a coup, especially with the likes of Nottingham Forest and Swansea City circling.

After Moore’s major summer rebuild of remaining loans and free transfers, Wednesday have an average team age of around 27.5 as per Wyscout, a stat that makes them the second-oldest team in the division behind only Wycombe Wanderers.

Even in the loan market, the Wednesday boss has edged towards the side of more experienced players more than in the past, with the likes of Lewis Wing, Florian Kamberi and Bailey Peacock-Farrell climbing on board alongside the more typically-profiled Lewis Gibson, Theo Corbeanu and Olamide Shodipo.

The fact is that Moore is working with a bigger budget at a bigger club. This may well have always been what he had planned.

But interest in Haydon Roberts my hint towards a different tact in the transfer market for Darren Moore’s Sheffield Wednesday.