This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Regular Punter’ series, where we gather original opinions from select, passionate fans of the clubs concerned on matters surrounding their team and share them with a wider audience…
Football League World’s Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit Thomas Fogg has revealed that he is "not too disappointed" that the club missed out on signing centre-back Michael Hector this summer.
It was announced yesterday that Hector will join Fulham in January after the Championship side signed the defender from Chelsea for a reported fee of £8 million.
The 27-year-old was extremely impressive on loan with the Owls last season, making 39 appearances and scooping the club’s Player of the Year award.
However, Fogg suggested that he was not concerned about Wednesday missing out on the defender.
He said: “This probably isn’t a widely held opinion but I’m not too disappointed we didn’t sign Hector in the summer.
“He had a good season for us but at no point did I think that we needed to go all out to sign him and certainly not for the £5 million fee that was rumoured. I’ve also seen £8 million quoted, which would be a crazy fee to pay.
“It’s easy to get carried away with players and it’s not usually until someone else is brought in that you can look objectively at the situation.”
Wednesday signed German defender Julian Borner this summer to replace Hector at centre-back and Fogg indicated that he had been impressed with the 28-year-old so far.
He said: “Julian Borner has had a great start to his time here and is already a hit with the fans – he wins his battles more often than not and is confident on the ball.
“The one thing that we perhaps miss from not signing Hector is having a vocal presence in the back four as Tom Lees is not that sort of player.
“However, I feel as his English develops Borner will grow into that role as he spoke of his desire to become a captain at the club when he signed.”
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Fogg added that he felt the partnership between Lees and Borner “looks solid” but raised some other defensive concerns, particularly over the Owls’ full-backs.
He explained: “Dominic Iorfa and Moses Odubajo both look clumsy, especially the latter.
“When Iorfa covered at centre-half on Saturday, his positional awareness, or lack thereof, was plain to see and I would prefer to see David Bates or Jordan Thorniley used as cover there in future.
“Defending is not just the responsibility of the back four though and our overall defensive shape has not been good enough in the last few games.
“Our midfield was non-existent against QPR – maybe when we switch back to a three-man midfield we’ll give our defence a slightly easier time of it.”
Due to the international break, Wednesday have to wait until Sunday 15th of September for their next game – a visit to struggling Huddersfield Town.