Nottingham Forest head coach Steve Cooper has expressed his frustration over Sheffield Wednesday’s decision to cut short Alex Mighten’s loan.
The 20-year-old was due to spend the season at Hillsborough, having had a number of clubs chasing his signature in the summer. But he struggled to pin down a regular starting spot and found himself used in a number of different positions during his 14 appearances, with the Owls opting to end his spell earlier this week.
Because Mighten has played for the Reds and Wednesday already this term, he is unable to represent a third club, which leaves him now having to try to fight for minutes in the Premier League. Cooper has spoken before about how highly he regards the youngster, admitting there had been much deliberation about what would be the best move for him in the summer.
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“Alex has come back to us and as he's already played for us, he can't play for anyone else now," the Welshman said. "I have my personal views on that, I think if you bring someone in on loan you commit to it.
"You know I have a passion for young players and know how important the early stages of when you break into a first-team can be. “We very much committed to Alex when he was with us, but I quite openly said to you that I wasn’t giving him enough game time - hence the loan.
“There was a lot of interest in him in the summer; he was a very sought after lad at those sort of levels. We chose carefully about where he went.
“Don’t get me wrong, you have to do the business as a player, but we chose carefully over where he went and the staff he went with, thinking that would be a good fit for coming back and trying to push to get into our team. For me, you give that trust to a club and they commit to it.”
The Sheffield Star have reported Wednesday’s decision was made because they had “been paying a significant proportion of Mighten’s wages” and took his “bit-part role” into account. Nine of the attacker’s appearances came in League One, with all but two in the starting XI, and he scored twice in all competitions.
“It doesn’t mean it’s a bad loan,” Cooper continued. “We’ve had good young players in the teams that I have worked with who might not always have been in the team, but we haven’t half worked hard with them.
“I remember when we had Sam Surridge at Swansea. He was in and out of the team a little bit, but he got into England Under-21s for the first time when he was with us. Don’t get me wrong, Sam works really hard as a professional, loves training and always wants to do more, but even though he wasn’t always in the team, we had a weekly programme for him that kept developing him. We owed that responsibility to Bournemouth at the time, for letting us have the player. It’s got to be a two-way thing.”
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