Exclusive:Sheffield Wednesday 'very close' on deals - why confirmations are unlikely for two weeks
Sheffield Wednesday’s football rebuild is being overseen by new sporting director Simon Wilson - who is confident in the club’s position in the transfer market heading into a busy summer.
A monstrous summer rebuild of Sheffield Wednesday’s playing squad is underway behind the scenes with some activity ‘very close’ to an agreement, according to the club’s new sporting director.
Speaking at an event at Hillsborough on Monday night, Simon Wilson expressed his confidence in the Owls’ position in the market heading into a busy summer in which the Owls will look to start a rebuild on a squad decimated by spiralling finances in the last two transfer windows.
Senior figures stopped well short of setting defined expectations for the season ahead and with so much work to do on and off the field reiterated the scale of the task in hand in remodelling a club neglected both on and off the pitch in recent years. But having begun preparatory work ‘on the sly’ in recent weeks, Wilson said things are moving forward.
“We’re very close with a number of things at the moment,” he told supporters. “Doing a transfer deal is hard; there are always three parties involved, being the buying club, the selling club and the player - the agent has no small matter in that as well! We have to get all of that aligned and it often takes a few stages.
“The wind is in our favour. People want to come to the football club, we’re in a very exciting moment, but we don’t have very many players at the moment. That means we haven’t got to move people out in order to get people in, we want to bring people in. So we expect to have news soon.”
After an unorthodox decade of doing business, CEO David Bruce has spoken about a desire to ‘rebuild trust’ with those within the game - including clubs, players and agents - and has clear ideas on how to do so. Outlining the identity and transfer policy he wishes to adopt at S6, Wilson stressed an alignment found in his early discussions with manager Henrik Pedersen and made clear Wednesday’s status as a major force in League One makes them an attractive proposition to targets.
He said: “We want to play in a way that excites the fanbase, that feels like ‘us’. We’ll start to define those characteristics. I’ve been working with Henrik Pedersen, he was very specific about how he wants to play, which is perfect. You want a coach who is going to tell you exactly what they want so you can find those players. But we’re an attractive club to come and play for, particularly in this league, right here and now. It’s not about finding players, it’s about choosing the right ones.”
Contract talks with a number of players are understood to be heading in the right direction and work has been done to outline potential incoming transfer deals including that of club legend Barry Bannan, sources suggest. Rumours of an especially imminent announcement of that deal or any other are wide of the mark however, The Star understands, as new owners Arise continue on the expected timeline of exiting administration.
It’s understood that an agreement with the EFL outlined that the payment of creditors must be complete before Wednesday could go about registering new players or move on to the registration of new contracts. The process of identifying and confirming creditor claims is well underway and on schedule, with its orchestration believed to have been complicated slightly at its outset by the logistics of a deal that will ultimately leave Dejphon Chansiri unpaid. Other creditors, some of whom may still be in the process of finalising their claims, are to receive a 25 per cent payment on what they are owed, which will be settled on its scheduled timeline and ahead of a 60-day deadline that arrives at the turn of the month.
It is understood that from that point Wednesday can go about formally registering players and completing recruitment work undertaken before and since US consortium Arise took control of the club on May 1. It is stressed that the signing of new players before that date was always seen as unlikely given the logistical preference of transferring players at the start of a month and that the delay in registration does not pose the Owls a material disadvantage given deals are being negotiated ahead of time.
What appears clear is that Wednesday will go about their business with a clear strategy, with Wilson outlining a sustainable strategy built on a balance between young and hungry players and those of experience. In recent years the Owls have suffered from an inconsistent approach to spending and their approach to the transfer market. The former Stockport County man wants to build a healthier approach to building a squad - and the prospect of selling to build.
“It’s really important,” he said when asked on his transfer strategy. “You’ve seen a lot of teams go at it with a one year plan, but what happens after one year? What we don’t want to do as a football club, and we’ve spoken about this as a leadership team, we don’t want to go through boom and bust cycles. It has to be a consistent upward trajectory.
“That’s why I believe in balance. When you’ve got one senior player coming off, you want to have an emerging player coming on. When you have one ‘best in the league’ type player moving into an older position, you want the ones that are behind them challenging. It’s always about succession planning, pushing the talent.
“Sometimes a club goes faster than a player and that means players may have to leave the football club. Sometimes the player goes faster than the club and the player gets an opportunity to go and play higher before the club can do it. As much as possible you want as many people on the same timeline together to grow over multiple years.”