Sheffield Wednesday: Hillsborough will be keen to forget controversial Barnsley FC raid - View | OneFootball

It did not work out for striker Sam Winnall at Sheffield Wednesday after his move from Barnsley in January 2017.

Sheffield Wednesday will be hoping for a much-improved campaign in the Championship this season.

After narrowly avoiding relegation last season following a remarkable turnaround under Danny Rohl, optimism is high that Wednesday can climb the table in the year ahead.

Rohl signed a new long-term contract at the club in May, and it was a busy summer for the Owls with 11 new players arriving at Hillsborough, but many of those additions were loans or free transfers.

It is a big contrast to the early stages of owner Dejphon Chansiri's reign, when he spent heavily as he looked to achieve his goal of reaching the Premier League within his first two years at the club.

After losing to Hull City in the play-off final in 2016, Wednesday were once again among the promotion contenders the following season, and with the team sitting in a strong position in the table, Chansiri backed manager Carlos Carvalhal in January.

The arrival of Jordan Rhodes from Middlesbrough in a deal that was initially a loan with an obligation to buy for a club-record fee of £8 million captured much of the attention, but he was not the only striker the Owls signed during the winter window.

Sam Winnall completed a move across South Yorkshire from local rivals Barnsley, and after an impressive first half of the season at Oakwell, he looked to be an exciting signing for Wednesday, but it did not work out that way.

Sam Winnall signing will go down as a failure for Sheffield Wednesday

Winnall had enjoyed a prolific spell at Barnsley since joining the club from Scunthorpe United in July 2014, and he scored 23 goals and provided 10 assists in 56 games to help the Tykes to promotion from League One via the play-offs in the 2015-16 season.

The 33-year-old seamlessly made the step up to the Championship, and after scoring 11 goals in 23 appearances in the first half of the 2016-17 campaign, he made the move to Wednesday in a deal worth £500,000 plus extras if his new club were promoted.

Given the rivalry between the two clubs, Owls supporters took great delight in the fact they signed one of Barnsley's key players, and with Winnall and Rhodes adding to an already dangerous strikeforce that included Gary Hooper, Steven Fletcher, Lucas Joao, Atdhe Nuhiu and Fernando Forestieri, there was hope that they now had the firepower to achieve promotion.

However, Winnall struggled to make an impact after his arrival at Hillsborough, and while he did have some memorable moments - including scoring against the Tykes at Oakwell in April - it quickly became clear that Carvalhal was having doubts about the striker.

Despite scoring once in the first three games of the 2017-18 season, Winnall was loaned out to Derby County on the final day of the summer transfer window in a swap deal for midfielder Jacob Butterfield.

It is fair to say that Butterfield did not impress during his temporary spell at Hillsborough, but Winnall scored six goals and provided two assists in 18 games for the Rams before suffering a serious knee injury in February that prematurely ended his time at Pride Park.

Winnall was forced to spend much of the next year on the sidelines, but after his strong stint at Derby, Owls supporters were hopeful that they would see the best of the striker when he returned to fitness.

Unfortunately for Winnall, he remained out of favour under both Steve Bruce and Garry Monk, and he was released at the end of his contract in the summer of 2020 after scoring just six goals for Wednesday in three-and-a-half years.

Winnall joined Oxford United in September 2020, and to add insult to injury, he would return to haunt the Owls during his time at the Kassam Stadium as he scored a late winner in the U's 3-2 win over his former club in January 2022.

That would not be the last time that Winnall would inflict misery on Wednesday, and he scored on both of his visits to Hillsborough in the 2022-23 campaign for Burton Albion, once in the EFL Trophy and once in the league.

Winnall announced his retirement from football in December, and while he can reflect on a successful career, he is unlikely to look back fondly on his time with the Owls.