As the loan signing deadline came around at the end of November Sheffield Wednesday made a double swoop in a bid to freshen up a team struggling for form and results.
Tom Soares and Warren Feeney joined the Owls on loan until the end of December, a period covering 7 matches from the time at which they were signed.
When signed the key attributes mentioned were energy and an eye for goal. In the three matches that Wednesday have played since the pair signed the team have failed to score a goal and yet between them they have barely managed a combined hour on the pitch in total.
Anyone witnessing Soares 2nd half appearance against WBA would find it hard to argue that the player looked anywhere near match fit. In the games against the Baggies, Reading and most recently Doncaster Wednesday have rarely managed to test their opponent’s goalkeeper and yet striker Feeney has been afforded less than 15 minutes playing time in total with almost half of his loan spell now passed.
With Wednesday hardly flush with disposable income at the moment it is difficult to justify the club paying any proportion of these players’ wages if they are not going to get the opportunity to play. If the team were performing well you could understand them having to bide their time for a chance but this is patently not the case.
If they are not fit to play then they should not have been signed in the first place and the money should have been invested elsewhere or saved if the right option was not available.
Wednesday were undone by a prime example of an effective loan signing at Doncaster on Tuesday. Billy Sharp joined Rovers in September and has featured in 13 league games to date, 12 from the start and has a scoring ratio better than 1 every 2 games.
Hopefully the Owls will prove me wrong and the two players will play major parts in the four remaining games before their loans expire but if that is to be the case then why have they not featured so much to date when the team have struggled so badly of late?
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