Two Sheffield Wednesday players have been praised after ‘ups and downs’ in their first season at the club.
Sheffield Wednesday snapped up six players with no experience in English football in the summer, with most of them struggling to settle into life at Hillsborough.
Pol Valentin proved to be a slow burner and has now become a ‘fan favourite’, while Momo Diaby is yet to live up to expectations after his long-term injury.
Juan Delgado has barely seen the ball after his own injury problems, while Devis Vasquez saw his loan deal cut short after a spell on the bench.
Djeidi Gassama and Anthony Musaba are probably the two names who have attracted the most attention, with the pair struggling for consistency but also showing a lot of promise.
Musaba is currently Sheffield Wednesday‘s top scorer with seven goals, while he has also bagged a further three assists. However, he has only managed three goal contributions in his last 21 games in all competitions.
Meanwhile, Gassama has struggled to earn quite as much game-time and has picked up three goals and three assists – with two of them coming in a stellar performance against QPR at the weekend.
A promising debut campaign for the attacking duo
While neither of them have managed to establish themselves as a regular in the team, journalist Dom Howson believes it has been a first solid campaign for them.
Writing on X, Howson said: “It’s not bad going that Gassama and Musaba have 17 goal contributions between them in their first year in English football. Worked under two very different managers. They’ve had their ups and downs this year. Both need to improve but the potential is there.”
Can they improve next season?
The pair both arrived at Sheffield Wednesday from France – both still relatively young. Gassama in particular has played very little senior football.
To move over to a new country – the Championship especially – and be expected to perform at a certain level, while also helping battle relegation, is always going to be a huge ask.
The duo have showed plenty of glimmers of promise and have proven themselves in the big games, so they are surely going to only get better next season.
Supporters will hope that that is in the Championship, but no doubt they could be a real cheat code if they were to stay in League One too – though hopefully we don’t need to find that out.