Sheffield Wednesday: Carlos Carvalhal shortlisted over 200 defenders but still made costly transfer mistake | OneFootball

Despite an extensive search for a new defender, Sheffield Wednesday's deal for Joost van Aken turned out to be a disaster.

It is fair to say that Sheffield Wednesday have had a mixed record in the transfer market during owner Dejphon Chansiri's reign.

After Chansiri bought Wednesday from previous owner Milan Mandaric for £37.5 million in January 2015, he set a target of reaching the Premier League in his first two full years of ownership, and he spent big as he attempted to achieve that objective.

A number of high-profile signings arrived at Hillsborough, most notably striker Jordan Rhodes, who made the move from Middlesbrough for a club-record fee of £8 million in 2017, and Chansiri came incredibly close to meeting his top flight goal, with the Owls twice losing out in the play-offs under Carlos Carvalhal.

The play-off semi-final defeat to Huddersfield Town in the 2016-17 season marked the start of a change in approach from Chansiri, with a significant reduction in investment after that, but he did pay a reported fee of £3 million to sign defender Joost van Aken from Heerenveen in August 2017.

Few Wednesday supporters had heard of van Aken when he joined the club, so his spell in South Yorkshire was not quite as underwhelming as some of the other transfer failures of Chansiri's tenure, but there is no doubt that he will go down as a major flop.

Carlos Carvalhal's transfer claim looked foolish after Joost van Aken failure

Tom Lees and Glenn Loovens had formed a solid partnership at centre-back during Carvalhal's first two seasons in charge, but after a second consecutive play-off defeat, there was a feeling that Wednesday needed fresh defensive options, particularly with Loovens coming towards the latter stages of his career.

A host of names were linked with the Owls during the summer transfer window, and Carvalhal opened up on the search for a new defender, revealing that he and his staff had shortlisted over 200 names in an attempt not to make a mistake.

"These kind of things take time," Carvalhal told The Star in August 2017.

"We don’t want to make mistakes.

"My staff and I have seen more than 200 centre-backs but for various reasons we have not bought.

"We have looked at players in the Premier League, the Championship, League One, League Two and abroad.”We have had chances to bring in centre-halves but we have not found the correct ones."

Wednesday's lengthy hunt for a centre-back finally came to an end when they completed a deal for van Aken in the final week of the window, and given that he had made 92 appearances for Eredivisie side Heerenveen and was a former Netherlands U21 international, he looked to be a shrewd signing on paper, but it did not work out that way.

Joost van Aken's Sheffield Wednesday move turned into a nightmare

Van Aken was thrown straight into the Wednesday starting line-up after his arrival at Hillsborough, and he initially appeared to seamlessly adapt to the Championship, but his smooth introduction to English football did not last long.

On just his fourth appearance for the club, van Aken endured a torrid afternoon as his side were beaten 4-2 at home by local rivals Sheffield United, and in truth, his Owls career never really recovered after that.

Van Aken kept his place in the team after his Steel City derby disaster, but he continued to produce unconvincing performances, and he suffered a season-ending injury in the 3-0 win at Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day.

After returning to fitness, there was hope that van Aken could get back to his best under the guidance of his fellow Dutchman Jos Luhukay, who had replaced Carvalhal as manager in January, but he made just one league appearance in the entirety of the 2018-19 season in the 3-2 defeat at Wigan Athletic on the opening day.

With his days at Hillsborough looking numbered, van Aken spent the 2019-20 campaign on loan at German second division side VfL Osnabruck, where he scored one goal in 22 appearances to help them achieve a 13th-placed finish.

While van Aken performed well in Germany, it seemed unlikely he had done enough to force his way back into the Wednesday team, but he was handed a reprieve by Garry Monk after his return, which he admitted even came as a shock to him.

“Everybody was surprised that I was in the team because most people wouldn’t have expected me to feature for Wednesday again — including me sometimes. At the end of last season I had a conversation with Garry Monk and he just said to me that everyone who comes in from the summer break who is under contract will get a fair chance," van Aken told The Athletic in January 2021.

Van Aken certainly took his chance as he established himself as a regular starter in the early stages of the 2020-21 season, and he remained in favour after Tony Pulis replaced Monk in November, with the Welshman even deploying him at left-back at times.

However, it would not be long until injury struck for van Aken once again, and he made what proved to be his final appearance for the Owls in the 1-1 draw at Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day before being released at the end of his contract in the summer following the club's relegation to League One.

Van Aken featured just 33 times in his four-year spell at Wednesday, and while injuries played a big part in his struggles, supporters still question to this day how Carvalhal managed to get it so wrong, despite conducting such an extensive search for a defender.

Bristol City defender Aden Flint was believed to be one of Carvalhal's top targets in the summer of 2017 prior to the signing of van Aken, and to add insult to injury for the Portuguese manager, he went on to have two loan spells at Hillsborough over the subsequent years after his departure.