Wolverhampton Wanderers have announced that a loan move for Theo Corbeanu has been completed.
The Canada international will be joining League One side Sheffield Wednesday for the 2021/22 season. There, he will link up with former West Bromwich Albion manager Darren Moore.
Since March, he has made his Premier League debut and has scored for Canada at the Gold Cup.
At 19, Corbeanu could have a stellar career.
However, does this loan move for Corbeanu mean that his long-term future lies away from Wolves?
Below is an analysis surrounding Corbeanu’s loan move and his future prospects for both Wednesday and Wolves.
Why go to Sheffield Wednesday?
Corbeanu has proven over the past few months that he needs regular club football, thus this loan move.
In addition to club and country debuts, Corbeanu excelled for the Wolves U23s, scoring five league goals last season.
Although he will be dropping down two divisions, Wednesday represent a very attractive proposition.
Firstly, tey are a sizeable club, with Hillsborough holding a larger capacity than Molineux.
Secondly, they are expected to be very competitive in the third tier and will expect to fight for automatic promotion to the Championship.
Moore usually deploys a 4-3-3 formation. This means that Corbeanu is likely to feature most as a winger, competing with Andre Green and Olamide Shodipo for a starting role.
The manager also has an excellent reputation with young players. Former Wolves players Niall Ennis and Cameron John both enjoyed regular game-time under Moore at his former side Doncaster Rovers.
This bodes well for Corbeanu, who will be hoping for plenty of minutes to help his development.
What about Wolves future?
A concerning trend Corbeanu will look to buck is the recent history of Wolves loanees reintegrating into the first-team side.
Out of Wolves’ 28 players used in the Premier League last season, only two of them returned from loans. These were Morgan Gibbs-White and Patrick Cutrone, the latter only making two substitute appearances in the league.
This statistic becomes slightly more startling when Wolves had more than 30 loan departures the previous year.
A caveat to this is the former boss. Nuno Espirito Santo, was renowned to prefer a smaller squad.
New boss Bruno Lage has already spoken about how he would prefer two players in each position.
However, with Wolves well-stacked for wingers currently, Corbeanu will need to hit the ground running at Wednesday if he is to add to his solitary Wolves league appearance in the future.