Sheffield Wednesday's new owner Dejphon Chansiri has prmoised to do everything it takes to achieve his aim of leading the Owls into the Premier League by 2017. The Thai businessman wasted no time in restructuring the management team at Hillsborough, bringing in Adam Pearson and Glenn Roeder to work in support of first team coach Stuart Gray and the summer is likely to see a busy player recruitment drive following todays developments.
The Owls have announced that 11 players have been allowed to leave the club without being offered new contracts.
Defenders Lewis Buxton, Kamil Zayatte, Dejan Kelhar, Joe Mattock, Matt Young and Rafa Floro will all be on the look out for new clubs this summer as will midfielders Giles Coke, Paul Corry, Rhys McCabe and Jacques Maghoma. Striker Gary Madine completes the released list.
Although the number seems high, in truth the majority of the names on the released lsit will come as no surprise to many Owls fans.
Perhaps the most surprising is Joe Mattock. The former West Brom defender made 30 appearances this season and was seen as first choice left-back in the Owls solid defence for most of the campaign.
Kamil Zayatte played over a dozen games and deputised well for the injured Glenn Loovens at times – he was certainly much more assured than in his first season with the Owls. However, it seems as though Wednesday will be looking to add more strength to their back line options.
Right-back Lewis Buxton has been at Hillsborough since 2008 and has become a fans favourite in recent seasons. He showed his ability in the final few games of the season but has spent a large chunk of the past 2 campaigns on the sidelines due to injuries and this is likely to have been a major factor in the decision to let him go.
Jacques Maghoma has flattered to deceive at times, providing plenty of assists when playing well but all too often producing disappointing displays and Wednesday will be hoping to bring in creative options with far more consistency as they look to make progress.
The other 7 players have either failed to make any sort of impression on the first team squad or have fallen out of favour and would probably not have been expecting to be offered new terms.
5 out-of-contract players are having discussions with the club about continuing their careers with SWFC, details of which can be found here: http://www.sheffieldwednesday-mad.co.uk/news/tmnw/wednesday_in_talks_with_5_over_new_contracts_861259/index.shtml