Jacob Butterfield’s return to Hillsborough will not be filled with fond memories after a he experienced a difficult season on loan at Sheffield Wednesday.
The Luton midfielder joined the owls for the 2017/18 season and though he featured 23 times, it was a turbulent time for the club.
Despite two successive failures in the Championship play-offs, Wednesday were favourites for promotion when Butterfield arrived on loan from Derby, but results went against them and manager Carlos Carvalhal left for then Premier League Swansea.
Asked if he had any good memories of his time in the Steel City, the 29-year-old said: “Not really. It was tough. I know the quality they’ve got in that squad. I went there after they’d been in the play-offs in the last two years. The expectation was automatic promotion. They’d spent a lot of money, had a lot of quality in squad and things just didn’t work out.
“Football is never that easy. Carvalhal was the manager and things turned a bit sour there. He ended up leaving for Swansea and we just never got it back together with the new manager and ended up in a real disappointing season.”
A 15th placed finished was the booby prize for the Owls who have gone through two managers since, with caretaker Lee Bullen currently keeping the hotseat warm after Steve Bruce resigned in the summer to take over at Newcastle United, having only taken charge of his first game in February.
Butterfield said of his spell in Sheffield: “That was a tough year for me, personally, playing on loan with different managers, different systems, in a club that was having a tough time, but I learnt a lot from that.
“I know how tough it’s going to be for us on Tuesday but we played Cardiff, who were in the Premier League last year, and dominated for large spells in the game. We dominated the first half against one of the favourites for promotion (West Brom) so we have nothing to fear.”
