Sheffield Wednesday have moved to take Nottingham Forest forward David McGoldrick on an emergency loan deal. The striker has signed for the Owls on a 1-month deal through to 16th October and will be available to make his debut in this weekend’s league one game at Yeovil.
McGoldrick began his career at Forest’s city counterparts Notts County and impressed enough in just 10 appearances to earn a move to Southampton. His best season for the Saints came in 2008/09 when he scored 12 goals in 45 starts before moving back to Nottingham during the summer.
Last season McGoldrick found the net 6 times in 13 starts and 11 substitute appearances having missed much of the early stages of the campaign due to a shoulder injury.
This initial loan spell at Hillsborough covers 5 matches, culminating in the Sheffield derby at Bramall Lane. The move is likely to raise a few eyebrows given that Wednesday currently have 4 recognised 1st team strikers on their books in Madine, Morrison, Lowe and O’Grady. With the latter two currently side-lined having both picked up injuries on their Owls debuts it may be the case that they are unlikely to get up to full fitness in the short term and so McGoldrick now provides a good option up front without having to take the risk of bringing the injured players back too early. Wednesday’s attacking options were reduced further on the back of Tuesday’s humiliating defeat at Stevenage when winger Jermaine Johnson was shown a straight red card late on and he will now serve a suspension.
However, given that Wednesday have conceded 14 goals in their last 7 league games without keeping a clean sheet during this spell it appears that the defence is the area that requires more attention at the moment. Slovenian defender David Kasnik is yet to feature for the Owls while young centre back Mark Beevers has been appearing on loan for fellow promotion hopefuls MK Dons.