Sheffield Wednesday looking to step on the accelerator in transfer market

Wednesday’s schedule has them set to return to Middlewood Road at the end of the month - it has been suggested June 29 - and as Owls supporters saw last summer, things can begin to move quickly after what was a much later completion to their season than usual due to involvement in a May 29 play-off final.

The Owls are understood to be in exploratative talks with a handful of players. It is not yet publicly known what their approach to the transfer market will be, with Moore making clear earlier this month that a decision over how ‘aggressively’ their strategy should be imposed would be made after talks between him and the club’s chairman Dejphon Chansiri.

This Wednesday marked the official opening of the EFL transfr window, meaning players can now be registered ahead of the new campaign.

Five players were secured as new signings before July last season and seven in the door before a July 9 pre-season trip to Portugal Moore used as something of a watershed target in terms of getting players in.

No firm details of a pre-season trip have yet been confirmed, but it seems likely the club will look to repeat the trick - if at all possible - by getting as many new faces as possible registered before they jet off for warm weather training.

Wednesday are operating in a slightly different manner given the exit of Head of Recruitment David Downes, though it is widely acknowledged that Moore took on an incredibly hands-on role in bringing players in last summer. Uncertainty over Downes’ switch to Blackpool dragged on for a number of weeks but in that time recruitment sources external to the club were instructed to diect their contact to Moore, suggesting he had taken on direct recruitment roles from Downes several weeks ago.

It is hoped internal meetings this week can now accelerate their plans.

Outline recruitment plans in the eventuality of either the Championship or League One were drawn up months ago, Moore told The Star. He said at the start of June: “The new season is on the horizon and will be upon us as quickly as this one has finished.

“We had those discussions last year and got a lot of work done early and that was important to how we started the season.

“We’re weeks behind everyone else because of the longevity of our season. We haven’t known until now what division we were going to be in. Now we do know, we have to press fast-forward and get those plans into action.”