Sheffield Wednesday: Owls refuse to put timeframe on Barry Bannan return

Barry Bannan went to see a specialist in London on Monday about his hip injury

Scotland international Bannan, arguably Wednesday’s standout performer in the first half of the campaign, suffered a fresh setback with his hip injury at the beginning of February.

Bannan, who has not played since the Owls’ 3-1 defeat at Norwich City over two months ago, visited a specialist in London regarding the problem on Monday.

Speaking after Wednesday’s morale-boosting victory over promotion-chasing Derby County at Hillsborough last night, Luhukay told The Star: “We hope, of course, that Barry can come back in the next days and weeks but it is also very difficult to say on what time he will 100 per cent come back.

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“He came back two weeks ago and then he had another problem. It is better we don’t put too much pressure on the player.”

The Owls are without a whole host of players through injury, including Keiren Westwood, Kieran Lee, Gary Hooper and Fernando Forestieri.

“We are working very hard with our medical team to bring the players back into training,” added Luhukay.

With Wednesday down to the bare bones, Luhukay has promoted youth. He has given opportunities to academy players such as Jordan Thorniley, Connor O’Grady, Freddie Nielsen and Sean Clare, who made his first Owls start in their 2-0 win against Derby.

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Luhukay, who made six changes to his starting line-up, said: “We have a team and everybody knows that they can get a chance. We have another game on Saturday so maybe we change some positions.

“We have a small team but I can trust the players and the players who didn’t play against Derby know they can maybe play on Saturday or the next game after that. We trust the team and the players who we have.

“We know we have a lot of players not available but the team will be stronger when they come back.”

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