Sheffield Wednesday manager Stuart Gray is refusing to give up on re-signing Connor Wickham, despite the striker's recall to the Sunderland squad.
Wickham has got his career firmly back on track thanks to a blistering loan spell at Hillsborough and, according to Gray, is keen to return there to continue his excellent season. If it does happen, it won't for a while, though. Gray told reporters:
I had a conversation with Gus and he said that [Steven] Fletcher had tweaked his Achilles so he was going to keep Connor for the next two or three weeks and see how it developed.
At the moment we desperately want to bring Connor back, but we need to look at other avenues to strengthen that centre forward area.
The boy wants to come back and we definitely want him back. We'll keep that door open.
It's great to see Wickham start to develop and make a bit of an impact. He needs games and, whilst it's nice to have him back here for another option at the moment with Fletcher's continuing struggles, I'd not be averse at all to him going back out on loan.
Some kind of decision needs to be made on his longer-term future though, because as things stand the clock it ticking.