Sheffield Wednesday: Carvalhal in heart-to-heart as '˜one or two' players' confidence hit by negativity

Carlos Carvalhal has expressed the important of Glenn Loovens (left) in the Owls squad

The Owls head coach believes the players in question have been believing too much that has been said or written about them and as a result their morale has taken a hit.

Speaking ahead of today’s Yorkshire derby with Leeds, he said: “I must tell you that specifically one or two players have lost confidence.

Owls Barry Bannan embraces Carlos Carvalhal at the final whistle after the win over Birmingham....Pic Steve Ellis

“The players are emotional, they are people, they have lives and when they hear all the time that they don’t perform well, that they play bad, ‘he’s not doing so well, he’s not playing like last season’ and so on, that can’t be (the case) because we are professional.

“Maybe (the players) feel ‘I am not doing well’ and lose confidence. It is our job to talk with them and show to them it is completely different. I am talking about one player who is doing fantastic things, having a fantastic season.

“I showed yesterday things we are doing in our process and he is involved in all the good things that we did.

“How this player is doing a bad season?”

Carlos Carvalhal says Jose Semedo is important to the squad becasue of his positivity

Carvalhal also expressed the importance of the more experienced players in helping others. He added: “We have a good group of captains...Semedo also is a very positive guy, Loovens is a very positive guy. These are players that are good captains, they help to create this kind of environment. I must tell you that we are positive.”

“We showed them videos yesterday not to motivate them, we did it to show the way we play in different moments of the game, defensive organisation, offensive organisation, when we miss the ball, when we win the ball, the things we did in the past we are doing and the things we want our team to do better. There are a lot of fantastic things we are doing this season with the way we are playing. Reacting to winning the ball, losing the ball, the way we are defending. We do these kind of things and we achieve victories and it was important to show the players and understand what we are doing and they are positive about that.”