Owls hope loan striker Wickham will stay put

Black Cats boss Martin O’Neill is mulling over recalling the £8m striker from his loan spell at Hillsborough with his side blighted by injuries.

Wickham netted the only goal in the 1-0 win at Leicester City on Saturday, the final game of his month’s loan spell.

The 19-year-old striker has stayed in Sheffield and trained with the Owls this week and Jones is optimistic of keeping Wickham for tomorrow’s visit of Championship leaders Cardiff City.

“We are just waiting to hear,” said Jones. “I spoke to Martin the other day and he had got one or two injuries and illnesses. Hopefully, we should find out in the next 24 hours.

“We want to keep him. Connor has enjoyed his time here and we want to keep good players around us. We don’t want to let another one go.

“Hopefully the lads that they have got injured will recover and they won’t need him. He’s been training here, training with us, and we are just waiting for them to confirm to us that es he can play on Saturday. That will suit us fine.

“The kid really likes it here. Manchester City’s guys came in yesterday to check on the progress of Jeremy (Helan, another Owls loanee) and everybody is happy in what we are doing, how we are developing them.”

If Wickham is recalled, Jones said he does have contingency plans, but they do not involve Chris O’Grady.

The striker was loaned to relegation rivals Barnsley, but the Owls have no right of recall as part of the deal. O’Grady, though, will be ineligible to play in the South Yorkshire derby at Hillsborough between the clubs on March 30.

“We have contingency plans, of course we do, but it doesn’t mean those contingency plans agree with those of the teams which we are looking at,” he said.

“We could have somebody get injured tomorrow, then what do we do? We are always on the look-out, looking at different things, and would have to wait and see what other clubs would say. We want to try and keep everybody together, that’s important for us. There’s a good feelgood factor here and that’s what we want.

“We will still do our work. Whether Connor goes back or stays, we are always on the lookout to improve the squad.”

Wickham came to Wednesday lacking match fitness, but towards the end of his month in Yorkshire showed signs of the form and potential which earned him a big-money move from Ipswich Town to Sunderland in the Premier League.