"In his sleep" - Gary Hooper named in Sheffield Wednesday player return debate | OneFootball

Our FLW fan pundit claimed if he could put one past player into the current Sheffield Wednesday team, it would be Gary Hooper

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

After a solid end to last season under Danny Rohl, many had tipped Sheffield Wednesday to be a dark horse for the play-offs this season, but it hasn't quite played out that way.

A lack of goals is proving to the Owls' undoing this season, with their 17 netted among the lowest in the division, and that's certainly been a contributing factor to why they find themselves languishing in the lower half of the table.

With the January window on the horizon, Rohl is presented with a perfect opportunity to sort out his misfiring frontline, and if he doesn't, then his side seemingly face another nervy ending to the season as they look anxiously over their shoulder.

The Owls return to Championship action with a huge clash against Hull on Saturday, which marks the first of four games against sides who sit in and around them in the table, which represents a huge chance to put points on the board.

It goes without saying that they'll need to put the ball in the net to get those points, and Wednesday certainly had one man in the not too distant past who knew exactly how to do just that.

Sheffield Wednesday could do with a blast from the past up front

Amid Wednesday's recent attacking struggles, which have seen them draw a scoring blank in four of their last eight games, we asked our FLW Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit Patrick McKenna which past player he would put in the current squad, and his answer was unsurprisingly, Gary Hooper.

He said: "Right now I think Gary Hooper would be a really good choice to put into the current team.

"He was a class finisher and goal scorer, who showed his ability for us, getting some very well-taken goals and was quite a frequent goalscorer for us.

"Some of the easier chances we've passed up this season, Hooper would've scored them in his sleep.

"That could've made a real difference in some games and would certainly have been worth a few extra points.

"Hooper would be a player who would fit very well into Rohl's system.

"Post-2000, he was probably the best striker we had for link-up play. He was a very intelligent player who knew how bring other players into the game, so I think he'd be very useful in our current system where he'd be bringing in other attacking players.

Hooper fired Wednesday to the brink of the Premier League

After leaving Hillsborough Hooper's career faded into relative insignificance, but it can never detract from the fact he scored goals at near enough every club he played for in his career.

Hooper first made his name playing for Scunthorpe, rattling in successive 24 and 19 goal seasons, before moving north of the border to Celtic, where goals continued to flow.

That earned him a Premier League move to Norwich, and although that move never truly worked out, he found a home with Sheffield Wednesday, and played a huge part in two seasons where they came mightily close to getting into the Premier League.

Hooper scored a respectable amount of goals in both the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, in which Wednesday reached the play-offs in both, losing in the final in the first season before suffering a semi-final exit a year later.

Most Wednesday fans to this day rue the fact he was unavailable for the play-offs in 2016/17, with our fan pundit claiming his absence was "huge", which just shows how highly thought of he was in South Yorkshire.

His goals helped fire them to the brink of the Premier Leage back then, but now, Wednesday fans would appreciate his goals simply to keep them in the division.