Vill Powell happy for Sam Reed's Sheffield Wednesday move

The 20-year-old left-back’s permanent transfer to the Owls was confirmed on Thursday morning after he’d completed a successful trial period with the club last season.

Reed, who spent three seasons with Brighouse’s first team, became the seventh Town player to move onto a higher level or professionally after making their debut at Step Four with the club.

Powell has overseen a lot of Reed’s development and although he’s losing his star left-sided defender, he spoke in glowing terms of the youngster when questioned about his time with him.

Speaking to the T&A, Brighouse’s manager said: “Sam has been brilliant to work with over these past few years; he’s like a sponge as he absorbs everything around him. He’s keen to learn, his fitness is great and he has taken on board every bit of information that has been passed on to him.

“He’s been with us for three years and it’s been good to see him develop in that time. Before coming to us he’d never played men’s football as he was also originally at Sheffield Wednesday’s development programme.

“So, it was about him buying into our ideas and us giving him the freedom to flourish within our set-up, which he has done brilliantly. He was able to establish himself as our first choice left back in his second season and in his third season, he was named in the team of the season at Step Four level.

“It’s a testament to him; his attitude and mentality have helped to earn him this amazing opportunity. Most importantly, he’s a great lad and has a great work ethic. We are all extremely pleased and proud of him at Brighouse Town.”

Sam Reed signing his first professional contract with Championship side Sheffield Wednesday (Image: Sheffield Wednesday)

Powell continued to laud his former energetic left-back and admitted that a move like this is such a rare commodity.

He said: “Yes, it is (a move he deserves), but it will be unprecedented for Sam having moved from Step Four in Non-League to a Championship side. I don’t think that has ever been done before. We’ve had players like Jamie Vardy make his way up to the Premier League, but he has done that by going through each division.

“That being said, if Sam gets the opportunity to play for Sheffield Wednesday’s first team, he won’t let anyone down.

“Some people might question whether this move has come too early in his career, with last season being his first full season in men’s football. However, for me, I’m of the belief that players and especially young players should get that opportunity to show what they can do at a higher level. You’ll never discover a player’s true talent if they don’t get given a chance.

“If I was the manager of Sheffield Wednesday, I’d definitely give Sam Reed a first team opportunity because he’s not going to let you down with his attitude, his fitness and his ball-playing ability.”

Discussing what might have drew Sheffield Wednesday’s in, Powell said : “I think as a modern day left-back you have to be able to bomb up and down the flank consistently, and players like Ashley Cole (former Chelsea player, Kyle Walker (Manchester City player) and Andy Robertson (Liverpool player) are all good examples of that.

“Sam can do that because he’s got many of the physical attributes required for a left back. He can carry the ball; he can make the right decisions in the right moments when on the ball and most importantly he can defend. He’s also very aggressive in his defending which is always a positive.”

Despite the loss of a high-quality player such as Reed, Powell believes that his club will be able to cope.

He said: “At Brighouse Town, I think we accept that we are a steppingstone club and not a destination club. We’ve had players in the past such as Aaron Martin leave us for professional football and now Sam has followed suit. He’ll be no different to players such as Aaron in the sense of we’ll need to replace them.

“However, we’ve got a good history of replacing high quality departed players, so we’ll be looking to do the same this time.”

Brighouse get their competitive campaign underway on August 12 when they travel to Ashington, and Powell admitted that he wants to add more players to his squad ahead of that fixture.

He said: “It’s no secret that we’ve had a lot of change in personnel, with some players moving on for fees and that kind of thing. From our point of view, there is a lot of quality on the market, and we feel we’ve found that and we feel we can add even more ahead of the season.

“Come the August 12, we will definitely be ready.”