Though it has taken six months, Sheffield Wednesday may have finally emerged victorious from Jack Hunt’s sale.
By selling Hunt to Bristol City last July, Wednesday are understood to have banked £1.6 million for a player in the final year of his contract – one which, at his age (then approaching 28) and in the club’s current financial state, would have been hard to justify extending.
And although his presence has been missed down the Owls’ right flank – particularly his pace and sense of adventure – the money raised from that deal, along with the one that saw Jordan Rhodes loaned to Norwich City, was necessary to fund temporary ones for Michael Hector and Joshua Onomah, whose positions of centre-back and attacking midfield, respectively, were in urgent need of attention.
Perhaps, too, those of Dominic Iorfa, Rolando Aarons and Achraf Lazaar on Thursday.
The fee for Iorfa has yet to be disclosed, although somewhere around the £500,000 mark, discounting add-ons, is probably a fair guess, considering his own contract status (he would have been a free agent from July) and lack of first-team football this season.
But by paying small fee now, Wednesday have jumped ahead of a likely queue of clubs trying to sign what would have been a Championship-experienced 24-year-old with 13 England Under-21 caps, without a fee, this summer.
And with another embargo looming, could we even guarantee the Owls would have been involved?
With no players leaving Hillsborough in January, they will seemingly cross that bridge when it comes to it.
But with Iorfa tied down to what is presumably a long-term contact, they will at least have one more player with plenty of resale value, should they need to sell again.