Sheffield Wednesday: All focus on Hull City clash as Carlos Carvalhal dismisses speculation

In recent weeks, the Owls have been linked with a number of players, including Galatasaray defender Sabri Sarioglu, Millwall’s Lee Gregory, Darmstadt’s Sandro Wagner and Karlsruhe’s Dimitrios Diamantakos.

But head coach Carvalhal has described all transfer talk as “100 per cent speculation”.

“Even one single player who the press talk about next season... (it) is speculation, 100 per cent speculation,” said the Portuguese chief.

“We haven’t talked about anything for the future.

“I choose the players for the future. I can guarantee to you that I haven’t done any technical meeting with the chairman at this moment because we don’t know what division we will be playing in next season.”

Given how well Wednesday have performed this year, Carvalhal believes he has turned the club into a more attractive proposition for potential new recruits.

“A lot of players want to play us because of the way we train and play,” he said. “It was probably not easy to contract players last year because the players didn’t know too much what would happen. But at this moment, a lot of players want to come and play for us which is very good. Our players are enjoying our work.”

Former Wednesday and England legend Chris Waddle has praised the job Carvalhal has done in turning the team into promotion candidates.

“Carlos likes to play open, attacking football but, defensively, Wednesday are quite solid and quite well organised,” Waddle said.

“Their problem is that Hull are still virtually operating as a top-flight outfit. Steve Bruce has kept a nucleus of his Premier League team including Tom Huddlestone and Michael Dawson – relatively recent England internationals. My heart says Wednesday can do it at Wembley – but my head says Hull will be difficult to beat.”

Meanwhile The Football League have moved to explain why Wednesday fans have been unable to get any more tickets, despite Hull City failing to sell out.

A spokesman said: “It isn’t always possible to make all of one club’s unsold tickets available to fans of their opponent, as the stadium’s safety certificate requires supporters to be separated at the turnstiles and on the concourses, as well as in the stadium bowl itself.”