Huddersfield Town ignored Sheffield Wednesday factor - Terriers couldn’t revive Newcastle United spark | OneFootball

Huddersfield Town ignored the evidence of Rolando Aarons' loan stint at Sheffield Wednesday and he flopped at the John Smith's Stadium.

There are plenty of footballers that have shown immense promise before falling off somewhat and those sort of footballers tend to make many coaches and clubs believe they can be the ones to ensure everything lines up and the player can realise their potential with them.

The unknown quantity and lack of a known ceiling mean that teams take punts on players where the evidence suggests they should not and that was exactly the case with Rolando Aarons at Huddersfield Town, who moved to the John Smith’s Stadium from Newcastle United in January 2021.

Following the risky appointment of Carlos Corberan in the summer of 2020, Huddersfield embarked upon trying to re-establish themselves as a bit of a force in the Championship.

They eventually would do with a third place finish and a play-off final defeat in the 2021/22 season, Corberan’s second season, but his first was to be a very tough campaign behind closed doors.

Flirting with a tilt at the top six mid-way through the campaign, Huddersfield managed just three victories in their final 24 matches of the season and a 7-0 loss to Norwich City at Carrow Road was certainly the low point in mid-April.

A woeful January transfer window had seen Huddersfield begin the fall off a cliff that had to be overhauled and fixed in the summer of 2021 and Aarons was one of, if not the, biggest issue from that window.

Huddersfield did not heed Sheffield Wednesday warning over Rolando Aarons

Having come through the academies of Bristol City and Newcastle United, Rolando Aarons made his first-team debut for Newcastle United 2014 at the age of just 18.

An impressive pre-season saw him fast tracked into the first-team at the start of that season and he continued to flourish, even scoring by the end of August in a thrilling 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace.

However, Aarons soon majorly diminished as a prospect and made just 27 appearances for Newcastle in total before a loan move to Hellas Verona in Serie A in the second-half of the 2017/18 campaign.

A disappointing stint at Verona was followed by an underwhelming spell in the Czech First League with Slovan Liberec, and yet EFL clubs still believed they could be the ones to get a tune out of Aarons.

Having scored just one goal in nine Sheffield Wednesday appearances in the Championship, Aarons then matched that goal tally in ten appearances in League One at Wycombe Wanderers before another low-key stint in Scotland at Motherwell.

The second-half of the 2018/19 season had seen an inconsistent, mid-table Yorkshire-based outfit, in Sheffield Wednesday, take a punt on the diminishing potential of Aarons, only to be majorly underwhelmed by his performances.

Despite that and all the evidence to suggest it would not be a sensible signing, another inconsistent, mid-table Yorkshire-based outfit, this time in Huddersfield Town, opted to take a punt on the further diminished potential of Aarons but, this time, on a permanent basis.

Rolando Aarons frustratingly flopped at Huddersfield Town

Aarons immediately came into the starting eleven for five games after his move to Huddersfield in January 2021 but after five very average performances, he was dropped from the squad before returning for some cameo appearances before the end of the campaign.

It had been a very tough beginning to his career at Huddersfield for Aarons and even the prospect of a fresh start over the summer didn’t help him get back on track.

Initially out of the squad for the opening two games of the season, Aarons failed to make the squad or was an unused substitute for Huddersfield in 45 of their 46 games in the 2021/22 season as they finished third, with only an eight-minute substitute appearance away at Barnsley in early-December to show for his trouble.

By the end of August 2022, Aarons was loaned out to Motherwell once again but, after just two more appearances in Scotland, that was cut short in November due to injury and he was eventually released by the Terriers in 2023.

Aarons has since gone on to play for Celje in Slovenia, under the management of Albert Riera, but again struggled for game time before moving to Morecambe in the National League.

He perhaps represents a lesson to many clubs and coaches to not be smarter than what they actually are and to believe that not everyone is a rough diamond awaiting their polishing.