Sheffield Wednesday boss addresses reports Blackpool are about to poach their head of recruitment

According to recent reports, the Seasiders are keen to bring in David Downes from Hillsborough to fill their sporting director vacancy.

Our sister paper the Sheffield Star has also reported there is truth to the speculation.

Addressing the reports, Moore told the local media in Sheffield: “There’s been a lot of speculation with David, but there’s nothing out there that’s been concrete and I can only treat it as speculation.

“Should we as a football club get anything concrete on the matter then obviously we’ll communicate that with everybody surrounding the football club. At the moment it’s been speculation and we have to treat it that way.

“Next week presents the week where, after the weekend and Bank Holiday, as manager of the football club and with the chairman we can talk and deal with the speculation around David.

“At the moment our focus is on Sunday’s game.”

Downes made the move to Hillsborough in 2019 after Steve Bruce was appointed as head coach.

He previously held a role at Aston Villa where he mainly focused on finding youngsters for the club’s academy.

If he does make the move, Downes will replace Chris Badlan who departed the club at the start of April after only four months in the role.

Badlan made the move to Bloomfield Road at the end of November after leaving Coventry City alongside Stuart Bentham, who became the club’s chief scout.

The duo were tasked with overseeing the club’s recruitment strategy, with the sporting director role replacing the head of football operations position that had been vacated by John Stephenson in March.

Badlan was also overseeing the club’s search for a new head coach and was in the midst of assembling a shortlist of names before a final appointment was made during the summer.

No reason was given for Badlan’s departure, with Blackpool only releasing a brief 25-word statement on the matter.

The Seasiders are in the midst of a major restructure following Wednesday’s departure of chief executive Ben Mansford, while a permanent head coach is still being sought.