Sheffield Wednesday deadline duo Ian Poveda and Kristian Pedersen will take a little time to get up to speed in the Owls’ survival charge, with Danny Röhl admitting that patience is required.
Sheffield Wednesday deadline duo Ian Poveda and Kristian Pedersen will take a little time to get up to speed in the Owls’ survival charge, with Danny Röhl admitting that patience is required.
The pair made their Owls debuts in chastening circumstances over the weekend, Pedersen in the starting line-up and Poveda from the bench in a 4-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town that threw a different complexion on their relegation scrap. Swansea loanee Pedersen had not kicked a ball in league football since October before a difficult 82-minute outing, while Poveda’s league contribution at Leeds United had been limited to a handful of cameo substitute appearances since his last start on the second matchday of the season.
The frustrated Owls boss told The Star: “It was from nothing to 100 per cent and it is always difficult when you look to sign players and you use the last day (of the transfer window). This is where we are and this is not easy. Yesterday was not really a training, it was more about recovery. I am not looking for excuses, I am looking at solutions and this is the job here. I am looking for the positive things to do to take us forward.”
Asked of the timescale he had in mind to get the pair fit and firing ahead of the Terriers defeat, Röhl said: “This is the challenge. When I looked at Ugbo in the window, he had not played so much but then I look at his movement in the last two weeks, it was right decision not to take him to Southampton and he trained on his own. He showed his quality in the last games. Now it is about getting the feeling for the new players, their load, their data. We will bring them on a level.
“The difficult thing is that we don’t have much training at the moment. It is a big opportunity to go through in the next round of the cup and it could be that we have always a game every three days to the international break, it is a tough race.”