Honesty, balance and trainers - Sheffield Wednesday have found relatability in Simon Wilson
Last week The Star was among those to have a sit-down with Sheffield Wednesday sporting director Simon Wilson. Our man Alex Miller reports his impressions.
There’s an air of quiet competency to Simon Wilson that he carries into a room at Middlewood Road where three local reporters are waiting for a post-transfer window debrief.
He does so with a smile and a firm shake of hands as he settles into a low-sunk chair. Bottles of water are offered on a warm day and there’s a few polite words exchanged between those present before the microphones are switched on. It’s all quite genial and, settling back and crossing his legs as the chat goes on, he strikes as a man perhaps a little jaded but relaxed after what will surely prove to be the most manic transfer window he’ll experience in his career.
The discussion is held last Thursday in the hours before Davis Keillor-Dunn’s loan switch from Wrexham is officially announced. Wilson had completed the finer points of their final summer pick-up from Adams Park, where along with head of recruitment Kevin Beadell and other members of Wednesday’s infrastructural line-up, he watched the Owls battle past Wycombe Wanderers to keep the momentum moving forward both on and off the pitch.
The Star had earlier unwittingly bumped into a busy-looking Wilson hurriedly punching messages into his phone from a behind-the-scenes corridor. The days of deal-doers sitting beside a stadium fax machine are long gone, it seems.
It’s not always the most abundant quality in the wider football industry, but there’s an air of no cheap soundbitery, no self-aggrandising jargon and no bullsh*t to the Owls sporting director that is appealing. In two short chats with the former Stockport County chief, he seems to be grounded and relatable. Agents and football figures who have had more regular dealings with him suggest this is an accurate reading of the man; one source who was involved with a potential deal that didn’t come to fruition over the summer described him as a ‘class act, always’, another pinned him as ‘impressive’.
He arrives at Wednesday with experience not only from an up-and-up steering of Stockport County, but of differing stints with Manchester City and Sunderland. Although he’s already tasted some of the highs and lows football can offer, there’s a sense that together with David Bruce, Oscar Chamberlain and others, these are figures hoping to be in the ascendancy of their careers. It’s understood that other possible hires were discussed at ‘senior figure’ level within the club but that some of those individuals were perhaps past the peak of their CV - these figures have been identified as ones that can grow with the Wednesday project.
A reporter into his eighth season covering Sheffield Wednesday has never had the opportunity to interview a person in his position before of course, the closest discussion perhaps being those of chance, in-passing chats with Beadell or previously David Downes. Despite requests, interviews with such figures were not granted in the previous regime and so the meeting at Middlewood comes as a refreshing shift in gear, though time was tight. It followed a similar get-together earlier in the summer.
What does a sporting director usually wear? You’d have to ask someone who has more experience dealing with the like. But in keeping with a down-to-earth feel to his demeanour, he wears white trainers and navy blue slacks, headed by a smart, long-sleeved, navy polo. He speaks confidently and succinctly and with an admirable honesty on the window that was.
“I would say there's a classic sporting director line, but it probably has been that lack of ability to make the more strategic long-term signings that we couldn't make after a period of time,” he says on the pitfalls of an ultimately well-received summer he said at the outset could well turn out to be ‘messy’. “We couldn't make those signings. It meant that we had to be really sharp around free transfers and loans. In one way, that's a challenge.
“In another way, it's a tool because you're very clear of what you can and can't do. Half of the battle in recruitment is being really clear because when you're faced with a lot of options, could be lots of players, or you don't quite know what your budget is, or you don't quite know what positions you're searching, it's when you delay, it's when you make the bad decisions, it's when you go early on something you might not need or you overpay on something.
“Having that clarity has actually been, in my opinion, quite helpful for us. We've done the best we could do, we believe, with what we've had available to us.”
That the reimagined Wednesday squad has six loanees and five players either signed or re-signed to one-year deals doesn’t quite speak to the grand, ‘all-in to throw it forward’ restructure that some may have envisaged. As outlined, restrictions prevented that. Of the 18 players signed to the club over the last months, Louie Barry leads the charge in terms of players you could see pressing forward alongside Wednesday’s ambitions in the next three or five years. Billy Mitchell, Jordi Liongola, Sil Swinkels and Callum Slattery are signed to multi-year contracts and could go with him. All have showed signs of quality.
Barry Bannan, Max Lowe, Liam Cooper, Reece James and Ricardo Santos are those signed or re-signed to one-year deals, while the likes of Yan Valery, Di’Shon Bernard, Sean Fusire, Gabe Otegbayo, Jamal Lowe and Liam Palmer are in the final year of their Wednesday contracts. The grand rebuild will take several windows.
It is understood that there were times that Wednesday looked likely to land a 24-year-old goalkeeper in Murphy Cooper, a 22-year-old left-back in Tayo Adaramola and a talented, good age midfielder well-known to followers of League One. There will have been other longer-term additions Wednesday would have fancied no doubt that never fell into the clutches of the media, though recruitment constraints prevented further work in that direction. Shuffling back in his chair, Wilson speaks openly.
“One of the benefits of almost starting from scratch again was that you could maybe put in some players that were going to be the core of the new group moving forward - to try to get the age profiles of players that might be here for four or five years and really help build the new Sheffield Wednesday,” he said. “We've been able to do a bit of that, but we had to deviate from looking at that as a category of player after we were unable to use transfer fees to the degree that we'd need to do it.
“So that's meant that certain conversations we've had to have with players that we had as targets couldn't materialise, they just had to be shut down. So we had to move in different directions, but I think the integrity to what we wanted in terms of players of different categories, players of different ages, players of different experience levels, players that can play multiple positions, I think we've landed with that. Like I said, I'm really, really pleased with the group that we've got.
“I'm really excited to see how this team grows and develops over the next nine months. And I'm really thankful for the group of staff that have got in the trenches with me and got it done.”
There is a sense that Wednesday is an aeroplane being built during take-off, vast hospitality suites opened within weeks of their first lick of paint, infrastructural plans ongoing a month into the season and squads pulled together in double-time. CEO Bruce has described 10 or 15 years of work being undertaken in just a few months. You could excuse one or two senior figures for taking a beat or two and while Wilson jokes that he had hoped he might have had ‘cucumbers over his eyes’ by the time the Keillor-Dunn deal was announced, the focus has already shifted to contract discussions and academy improvements.
Whatever discussion around any struggles discussed in what was a whirlwind window, the end result feels exciting. Wednesday sit top of the League One table after five games in which there is a self-acceptance only one saw what football people tend to describe as a ‘90-minute performance’. There’s room for improvement and plenty more to come.
In relaxed tones, Wilson’s own words revealed that the Owls had ‘emptied the piggy bank’ to sign Keillor-Dunn and that the ceiling on transfer spend will carry into the January window, meaning any mid-season splurge won’t be immediately available. But there seems to be a confidence the bulk of the current squad can take Wednesday to the upper reaches of the table - with perhaps a move around or two in midwinter making tweaks possible.
Like others in senior positions at S6 in recent months, there has been form forecast given on where expectations might sit in the here and now, though there is a sense that the success of the window has moved the needle north a touch. Chairman David Storch wants promotion in the next two years and supporters are wondering whether one might just do. Nobody is getting carried away with the 12-point haul to date - there is much still to be done.
“I think it's too early to talk about an expectation,” Wilson said. “I think that we came into the season to say we need to take a first step to making a better Sheffield Wednesday and I hope the fans feel good about the direction that we're going in.
“The team has started well. I think if you had the players in here right now, they would be pleased with the wins. There's aspects of performances that we know we need to improve on. But what I would do is back the coaching staff and the players and everybody here to improve what we're seeing right now between now and May when it is what we need to. Nothing's off the table. We've started well.
“We've got points on the board but we've played a few games. It's not professional or diligent of us to start by saying this is what it's going to be all the way through. We know there are going to be twists and turns. But it is also okay to say we've started well and I do believe that we will get better and better from this point forward.”
The round-table interview closes and after a word or two of thanks, Wilson steps off into out of the room and back out into the afternoon. The window may have closed but the work certainly hasn’t. Middlewood Road, not long ago a den of tired stoicism, feels alive with activity. Wilson is one of those leading the charge.