Goalkeeper Pierce Charles has a bright future ahead of him

Sheffield Wednesday should aim to secure a financial package worth between £5m and £10m if they sell Pierce Charles this summer.

That is the view of Owls legend Chris Waddle, who was speaking to The Star after talented goalkeeper Charles, 20, was linked with a return to Manchester City. Charles was in the City ranks as a youngster before moving to Hillsborough, signing his first professional contract with the club in 2022.

The Northern Ireland international suffered a couple of injuries last season but still made 21 starts in all competitions, including 19 in the Championship. Charles is highly-skilled with his feet and with playing out from the back a big part of modern football, the stopper is likely to be in-demand.

With Wednesday in League One next term, and with Charles only having one year left on his contract, The Owls’ resolve could be tested this summer. Although Waddle does not think they will be able to command a huge initial fee, he thinks they should be able to negotiate a deal that brings in more funds later down the line, and that there should be plenty of options available to replace him.

“I think there's a lot of good goalkeepers around and available,” he told The Star via NewBettingSites.uk. “There's not many teams with bad goalkeepers. So there is a hell of a lot of goalkeepers available if they (Manchester City) are going to offer silly money.

“I would think it will be one, two or three million in add-ons. If he gets in the first team, there's another million or whatever. It should add up to about five or 10 million.”

Should Charles make the move to a Premier League giant, first-team opportunities might not come straight away, and Waddle believes it is important he continues to progress, and a loan back to Wednesday could be an option, although a top-flight club might want to test him higher than League One.

He explained: “Everybody needs to play. I understand if you're 40 or 38 or 37 you could be on the bench. But when you're young, you've got to play football. You need to play and you need to play the level. No disrespect to the reserve league or under-21 league, they are rubbish. They don't tackle, they don't compete. It's not like the reserve league used to be when I grew up. The reserve league was a real, hard, physical league, where you got bumps and bruises every week, and it was as good as playing in the fourth division or third division, I can tell you. In modern football, there's no contact in the reserve games, so he needs to play now. “

He added: “If somebody wants to buy and stick him in the reserves, I don’t see the sense in that. He needs to be playing whether it be the Championship, Premier League, even League One. If a big club did buy him, I think they might be quite willing to loan him out for a year, they may want him in the Championship, but I'm sure they'd loan him back out.”