On Tuesday evening at Port Vale Francis Jeffers was given another chance to stake his claim for a run in the Wednesday side. By half-time he had been dismissed for a petulant off-the-ball incident and the Owls went on to a 2-0 defeat in exiting the league cup.
Whilst the blame for the defeat can’t be placed solely upon Jeffers – Wednesday were no great shakes with 11 men and most of the players have to accept that they should perform much better than they did on the night – he has wasted yet another opportunity to kick start his flagging career.
The Owls are seemingly not going to be short of options in attack in the coming weeks and Jeffers may well find himself way down the pecking order and could be surplice to requirements.
Despite his many debut misses Luke Varney contributed a lot to the team on his return debut in Saturday’s win over Scunthorpe and seems to link up well with the team as a whole.
Akpo Sodje and Leon Clarke are back in full training and when fit have offered much more than Jeffers has and so Port Vale should have been an ideal opportunity for the scouser to give the manager and the fans a timely reminder of what he has to offer.
Unfortunately Wednesday have clearly not seen the best of Jeffers and it has been a major disappointment given that the club spent a large amount on his transfer and wages in relation to their spending players at that time.
To date he has simply not provided any sort of value for money and after two seasons with the Owls he has racked up just 5 goals in almost 50 appearances in total.
In fact with two of those goals coming from the penalty spot he has been dismissed just once less than he has scored from open play for Wednesday.
With these facts in mind many fans hold the view that Jeffers has been given more than enough chances and it may be time for the club to cut their losses – if an interested buyer can be found.