In truth, there aren’t many moments that stand out from Jeff Hendrick’s season on loan at Sheffield Wednesday - except one.
The former Burnley man, who joined the Owls in a season-long temporary switch from Newcastle United for the 2023/24 campaign, struggled to make much of an impact across just 12 senior appearances, with only 14 minutes of action coming after the start of December.
Indeed, Hendrick was only registered late on in the enthralling second half of their historic survival comeback mission alongside Lee Gregory - though by the admission of Wednesday boss Danny Röhl himself, it’s a mission that started with a flick of the 79-cap international’s right boot.
Röhl’s Owls had won only one of their first six matches when table-topping Leicester City came to S6 in late November 2023, with Wednesday rock bottom of the table and smarting from a gut-wrenching defeat at under-par Birmingham City. Some 10 points from safety after just 17 matches, the mission looked doomed to fail despite an encouraging upturn in performance.
TURNING POINT: Jeff Hendrick's stoppage-time equaliser for Sheffield Wednesday against Leicester City changed the course of Danny Rohl's first season as managerTURNING POINT: Jeff Hendrick's stoppage-time equaliser for Sheffield Wednesday against Leicester City changed the course of Danny Rohl's first season as manager
TURNING POINT: Jeff Hendrick's stoppage-time equaliser for Sheffield Wednesday against Leicester City changed the course of Danny Rohl's first season as manager
Hendrick’s late equaliser blew the roof off Hillsborough and gave the Owls a new lease of life. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now 33, the former Wednesday man is a free agent having been released by Derby County without making an appearance. Following the end of his loan with Wednesday he was let go from his contract with Newcastle but signed with the Rams in March in a bid to bolster their relegation-scrapping squad.
That survival bid proved successful, though Hendrick’s time there wasn’t. He sat as an unused substitute in six Championship matches but never got on the pitch before a calf injury ruled him out for the final weeks of the campaign.
Hendrick was one of eight players announced to be leaving Derby when their contracts run out at the end of June. The others are Tom Barkhuizen, Sonny Bradley, Tyrese Fornah, Rohan Luthra, Erik Pieters, Kemar Roofe and Conor Washington. Where the Dublin-born midfielder goes from here remains to be seen. From a Wednesday perspective, he’ll always have Leicester.
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