Sheffield Wednesday consider 'aggressive' transfer window after squad depletes

On Friday the Owls announced the exit of five senior players and will wait on contract decisions by Callum Paterson, Marvin Johnson and Fisayo Dele-Bashiru after they were offered deals to stay on at S6. A glance at the squad shows holes to plug and areas to improve upon.

Wednesday boss Darren Moore said long before their play-off escapades that they had definite plans for either divisional eventuality and has made clear he wants the circumstances around the future of head of recruitment David Downes sorted in the first instance.

What’s clear is that with or without Downes, Wednesday will look to move quickly to secure targets as they did to great success last summer.

Meetings have been held with chairman Dejphon Chansiri to ascertain just how ‘aggressive’ the club will be with regard to spending in the coming months.

Though that may ring a few alarm bells given the Owls’ recent issues with spending rules, Moore has said it is important the club do so in a responsible manner.

“First things first, we get together. Myself and the chairman, the recruitment team, we need to address the current squad and then go forward with the strategy we’ve got in terms of the recruitment process,” he told The Star.

“We need to see just how aggressive we can go with it over the next few weeks.

“Now that we know what division we’re in, we can start implementing the plans we’ve had for the upcoming season.”

Names have started being fed through the rumour mill with Wednesday a club never far from the transfer gossip columns. Moore made clear last season’s Cardiff City-owned loanee Mark McGuinness is not a player that has been discussed at any length and as things stand the acceleration of transfer plans are in their early stages.

But with definite plans in place, there is confidence the limbo of Downes’ situation at Hillsborough – he is understood to be of interest to League One club Blackpool as the club’s sporting director – will not have a major impact on their transfer activity.

What’s clear is that there will be no time wasted if Moore has his way.

“We have to put everything into practice straight away,” Moore continued. “The new season is on the horizon and will be upon us as quickly as this one has finished.

“We had those discussions last year and got a lot of work done early and that was important to how we started the season.

“We’re weeks behind everyone else because of the longevity of our season. We haven’t known until now what division we were going to be in. Now we do know, we have to press fast-forward and get those plans into action.

“Our recruitment plans were done for both divisions. Now that promotion is done, it’s about putting those plans into overdrive and start getting ready.”

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