Sheffield Wednesday will always feel robbed over £1.5m Nottingham Forest transfer | OneFootball

The Owls sold this star for just £1.5m back in 2014, in hindsight, they could have held out for so much more.

Sheffield Wednesday must surely look back at their 2014 decision to sell Michail Antonio to Nottingham Forest with a tinge of regret.

The Owls sold Antonio to the East Midlands outfit for just £1.5m and were then forced to watch on as he notched 14 league goals and 12 assists before earning a move to West Ham United just a year after leaving Hillsborough.

Now into his tenth season with the Hammers, Antonio has become a genuine threat to Premier League defences, and also played a key role in West Ham’s UEFA Conference League triumph back in 2022/23.

While he is not the kind of player likely to have attracted big-money bids from the country’s top clubs, it was still a costly error from Wednesday. Given the fact that Forest flipped a quick profit, selling him for £7million after just one year, the Owls must surely look back and wish they had held out for more money.

Antonio’s was excellent for Wednesday

It’s fair to say that Wednesday fans probably wouldn’t have known what to expect when they first signed Antonio back in February 2012.

The attacker joined on loan from Reading, having spent the first half of the season with League One side Colchester United. With the Owls also a third tier club at the time, Antonio played a huge part in them winning automatic promotion back to the Championship.

The Jamaican netted a crucial stoppage-time winner against Carlisle United in April, before scoring the opener on the final day of the season, as they ultimately beat their city rivals to second place.

That impressive loan spell saw Wednesday sign him on a permanent basis in the summer of 2012, and his impressive form continued into the following campaign as he notched eight goals and nine assists in his side’s second tier return.

Antonio then moved on to Forest ahead of the 2014/15 season, and the Owls were immediately made to regret their decision. The forward enjoyed the most productive season of his career with 14 league goals and 12 assists as the Reds laboured to a 14th-placed finish.

That campaign saw Antonio catch the eye of Premier League clubs, and he ultimately left Nottingham to join West Ham in September 2015. The East End club paid Forest a cool £7million for his services, leaving Wednesday to question why they had accepted such a comparatively small figure a year earlier.

Antonio has become a key figure for West Ham over the years

In the nine years since his move from South Yorkshire to East London, Antonio has become a hugely important member of the West Ham squad.

He is currently the club’s second-longest serving player, behind only left-back Aaron Cresswell. He is also now third on the Hammers' all-time Premier League appearances list. The 34-year-old has had to work hard to carve out the career as a top flight striker that he has enjoyed in recent years.

He spent time playing at both right-back and right wing before eventually establishing himself as one of the Hammers’ main strikers. The frontman then broke into double figures for Premier League goals in three consecutive seasons between 2019 and 2022.

His tally in 2021/22 (the last of those three campaigns) was his best ever at top flight level, as Antonio finished with 10 goals and eight assists from 36 games as David Moyes’ side finished seventh and secured European football for the following campaign.

Although his Premier League numbers were down the following season, the Jamaican was instrumental in Moyes’ men lifting the UEFA Conference League trophy, having scored six times from just nine appearances during their run to the final against Fiorentina.

Since then, Antonio has begun to wind down a little, but still managed six league strikes from just 26 outings last term.

The striker survived a scare back in December, when a serious car crash left him “grateful to be alive.” Despite his age, Antonio seemed determined to come back from the leg break he sustained in that crash and, while his recovery is still ongoing, it will surely prove to be a special moment for him, and everyone at West Ham when he does return to the pitch.

From Wednesday’s point of view, while they will surely feel a sense of pride at the part they played in Antonio’s development, there must also be a feeling that they should have perhaps done more to fend off Forest’s advancement.