David Wagner made "exciting quality" claim around 2016 Huddersfield Town signing - it was his best decision | OneFootball

He helped the Terriers achieve Premier League promotion

Huddersfield Town's 2017 promotion to the Premier League is still one of the most unlikely underdog stories in football.

The Terriers had just come off the back of a fourth successive season languishing in the lower bottom half of the second-tier, and with the club now an established Championship side after almost a decade in League One, between 16th and 19th seemed to be their ceiling.

However, David Wagner was approaching his first full season at Huddersfield, and his movements in the summer transfer window indicated that he wasn't content with being one of the sides hovering above the trap door to the third tier season upon season.

The German boss brought in 13 players during the 2016 summer window, including centre-back Christopher Schindler and left-back Chris Lowe. Arguably more importantly, he secured a season-long loan deal for Australian midfielder, Aaron Mooy.

Coming from Manchester City after signing there from their sister club Melbourne that same summer, the then-25-year-old had serious excitement around him, and he came to be one of the key men in their promotion and then their subsequent Premier League seasons.

What David Wagner said about Aaron Mooy when he signed for Huddersfield Town

Huddersfield needed a new central midfielder in the summer of 2016 after Welshman Emyr Huws's loan spell ran out the season prior.

Huws scored five and assisted three in 30 Championship games in the 2015/16 campaign. Not exactly huge shoes to fill, but Mooy needed to come in and provide that attacking spark to the Huddersfield midfield. Wagner thought he could do that and more.

"He's an offensive central midfield player who fills the position left by Emyr Huws' departure," Wagner said.

"We have completed some very interesting permanent transfers, but sometimes the loan market offers exciting quality like Aaron."

Mooy had contributed to 20 goals in just 26 A-League games the season prior, and had six goals in 18 Australia caps at the time of signing. Clearly, he had the quality there, but could the excitement translate to English football?

Well, Mooy ended up recording the most passes and touches among any central midfielder in the Championship that season, as well as the most tackles won too. He was one of the most complete players in the entire division and won Huddersfield's Player of the Season award at the end of their promotion campaign.

Now that the Terriers were in the Premier League, one of the first things on their to-do list was to ensure that Mooy didn't become a classic example of a loan player you'd fall in love with for just a season.

Aaron Mooy in the Premier League

Wagner called Mooy one of his "key targets" ahead of their first season in the Premier League, and made sure that he was one of the first names back through the door at the John Smith's Stadium that summer.

And his performances in the top-flight showed just why. Many had Huddersfield nailed on for relegation in the 2016/17 term, so everyone involved in that survival squad will go down in history among Terriers fans and Mooy's presence in all but two league games was the beating heart in a gruelling campaign.

Ultimately, he couldn't help Huddersfield survive in the second season, but his top-flight quality across the past two years was evidently on show, as he secured an immediate move back to the Premier League with Brighton in 2019.

All in all, Mooy made 120 appearances for the Terriers, the most for one club in his entire career. It's not often in football that a fan falls in love with a loan player and then gets to continue that relationship past the season you have with them, but Huddersfield were able to with the Australian, and he's now regarded as one of the best players in the modern day to play for the Yorkshire outfit.