Sheffield Wednesday’s stance on contract talks made clear – some senior players in final year of deal

A number of senior players are set to see their contracts finish this summer, with striker Lee Gregory having admitted over the weekend that in an ideal world, he’d have talks over his future begin sooner rather than later.

Negotiations with Fisayo Dele-Bashiru are at a ‘latter stage’, with the club hopeful of extending his time at S6, while the club are understood to have extension clauses on the likes of Josh Windass and George Byers that will allow them to automatically trigger an extra year.

It is unclear whether similar extension clauses apply to Gregory, Barry Bannan, Liam Palmer, Jack Hunt, Callum Paterson, Dennis Adeniran, Dominic Iorfa, Marvin Johnson or Jaden Brown, all of whom have deals reportedly ending at the end of the season.

But there is plenty of time for talks to be had and Wednesday boss Darren Moore indicated such talks are down on his priority list with the focus of both players and staff on the job at hand – winning matches for the club in the here and now.

Moore also made clear the future of the players is in their own hands – and that he is still striving for a level of consistency he says this squad are yet to reach.

“The players will dictate that [decisions over contract extensions] to me and the club,” Moore told The Star. “We feel we’re in a position now where we are this season, the players are under contract this season and we don’t need to bring anything forward.

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“The players, myself, everybody, we’re all head down working extremely hard and we want to continue going that way. That’s where we are.

“In terms of me saying ‘The talks are going to open here or then’, that’s not the case because there’s so much more for us to focus on going forward.”

Wednesday sit third in the League One table after a bright start to the season that has them riding high in the thoughts of many onlookers when it comes to the battle for automatic promotion.

A relaxed Moore accepted speculation over contract extensions may well come into focus in the months ahead but stressed there is no immediate need to rush into such talks while their busy fixture schedule continues.

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He reiterated that the quality of performances by the players in question will make the club’s decisions simple.

“The players need to perform and perform well,” Moore continued. “Then it will look after itself. If they are performing well, it creates more noise [speculation over contract extensions] and that’s what we want because it means they’re doing well.

“Performance is the big thing, that’s all I want from players. They know that when we perform each week, we’re looking for performances over a consistent time.

“I still feel we’re working towards the levels we want to be at at the moment. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us.”