Akpo Sodje appears to have played his last game for Sheffield Wednesday. The tall striker has signed for Charlton Athletic in a loan deal that will take him to the end of his current Hillsborough contract and there is not likely to be another one offered to him. In fact, should the front man live up to expectations for the remainder of the season at The Valley he is in line to earn himself a permanent contract with the London club.
The reason for Akpo’s departure from Hillsborough is fairly straightforward when looking at his playing statistics for SWFC.
Signed in the summer of 2007 from Port Vale Sodje quickly won over the admiration of the Hillsborough faithful but although he managed seven goals in his first season in the Championship it was a season blighted by injury in which he only appeared in around a third of the Owls first team games.
With the benefit of a good close-season preparation under his belt Sodje was raring to go at the start of the 2008/09 campaign and got off to a flyer, scoring two and setting up another as Wednesday ripped into eventual play-off winners Burnley. That red hot start wasn’t to last long though, in fact it barely survived 20 minutes as Sodje succumbed to yet another injury. He was to start just one more game in the whole of the season and did not start a single game for the club in 2009/10.
In the near two and a half seasons he spent at the club Sodje started just 19 games in league and cup, making a further 25 appearances from the substitutes bench and scored just 9 goals.
With the transfer window now closed Wednesday have chosen not to replace Akpo with boss Alan Irvine believing that the Owls have enough strength in depth in this position. The loan market does however reopen next week and Wednesday may have a little room for the manoeuvre thanks to the savings made on the striker’s wages.