Probably not far off the mark with that. He Probably understood he's own body and took the money, if he knew he had injuries in him that would stop him gaining higher football then you can't blame him, if he were your son, then take the money.
He was great for us but well past his best now. Injuries have finished him. Having said that he’s probably still got more to offer at L1 level than Cole.
The way he reacted when he wanted a move will always leave a bad taste in the mouth. But you can't deny that, with the right service, he was a phenomenal goalscorer. Wednesday signed him because they could. They also signed Rhodes the same week, and from what I remember, already had Hooper, Fletcher, Nuhiu, Joao and Forestieri on their books. Whilst Sam always struck me as very confident, it always looked an odd move from a footballing perspective. Which then makes it look undeniably like he moved for the money. Particularly with his injury record, he was always going to struggle to make a breakthrough at Wednesday. He'd have been much better off staying with us until the end of the season, and then going for a move which would have advanced his career. He'd have still got a payday, even if he'd have held out for someone like QPR, Middlesbrough, Blackburn etc.
He got loads of abuse, scored for Wednesday at Oakwell and then ran down the side of the East stand celebrating wildly and some Barnsley fans got rather upset. Some Barnsley fans happy to dish it out but cant take it.
See, that's the one thing I don't hold against him. From what I gather, the responsibility for that relied solely on his agent. Both us and Wednesday had agreed to hold off until the day after from what I remember, but his agent leaked the photo on twitter for their own gain.
in which case, at least a public apology from sam and immediately sacking his agent. did he do either of those things?
Load of crock IMO. Surely any self respecting person would do what the client wanted. Poor choice of agent in my eyes and i don’t ever recall any apology for the way the deal got released either. Club employees around the time said Winnall had a really poor attitude anyway and had become quite disruptive in trying to force the move.