Why Sheffield Wednesday signed nobody on deadline day - Owls boss opens up on quiet window

The Owls had a very quiet window in January, with no exits – other than the loans of Mark McGuinness and Alex Mighten being cut short – and just the one arrival as Aden Flint came in to boost Moore’s backline.

Wednesday’s manager previously stated that he wanted to end the window stronger than they went into it, which they haven’t managed to do, however the general feeling is that they still have enough quality and versatility within their ranks to achieve their end goal of promotion back to the Championship come the end of the season.

After making his desire to add bodies clear, some fans were concerned with the lack of movement on deadline day, but the Owls manager says that ‘red tape’ was always going to make it difficult.

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“It’s just football,” he told the media. “That’s the best way I can put it. If you look at the Premier League, and the other clubs trying to get deadline transfers in, everybody has struggled. There’s been the knock-on effect of the World Cup, and players who may have become available just weren’t there.

“It wasn’t for the want of trying, we did try. But there can be so much red tape… Maybe wages aren’t enough, we haven’t offered enough, family issues, the club not releasing him, agents being funny trying to get two or three clubs involved - that’s just a few examples of how it can go.

"Did we try? Yes we did. Were we successful? No. But it was always going to be minor surgery in this transfer window for us here at Sheffield Wednesday.”

The Owls boss also made it clear that signing a new centre back was his main priority in January, so once Flint was on board he wasn’t too worried – especially after the work done over the summer.

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He went on to tell The Star, “It was quite calm, I was back home by 5pm - which has certainly not always been the case in other windows. We did try and sign - but we’re looking at quality, we didn’t want to add for the sake of adding bodies. It just didn’t materialise, but like I said it was about minor changes.

“ A lot of our work was done in the summer, and you’ve seen that. I think doing that has got us to this point now, because we got them in and integrated - that’s given us a solidity.

“When I got Aden I did breathe a sigh of relief, because that was paramount. We had to do that. If we’d got the other two it would’ve been nice, it’d have given us a different dynamic - but the group have to keep going.”

Moore’s Owls now face a huge seven days as they take on Plymouth Argyle at home for a chance to go top of League One, before travelling to Fleetwood Town in the FA Cup and then third-placed Ipswich Town a few days later.

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