Official: Michael Hector joins Sheffield Wednesday on season-long loan

If ever there were ever to be loan veterans in football, Michael Hector would be a shoe-in for one. He’s been on thirteen loans in his career so far, and will don the colours of Sheffield Wednesday for the latest one.

Signed from Reading as a 23-year-old, Hector’s career as a Chelsea player has been a curious one. He wasn’t initially signed as a first-team player, although 23 is undoubtedly significantly more than the average age of players destined for the ‘Loan Army’ right from the start.

Perhaps there was some hope that he would finally blossom into a Premier League defender after establishing himself as an able center-back at Championship level? We may never know exactly why Hector was signed but it’s clear that he hasn’t yet progressed beyond the Championship level. There was some hope that he’d make the step up to a top European league with a loan to Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2016/17 season but he struggled to establish himself at the German club and returned to the Championship with Hull City, where he was excellent on good days and abysmal on bad ones.

Hector will be hoping to prove himself worthy of a higher level than the Championship this season, and may he have success in doing so.