Darren Moore delivers uncertain verdict on Josh Windass injury and explains other absences in West Brom defeat

The Owls lost 2-0 at the Baggies’ training ground on an afternoon that saw Windass – Wednesday’s top scorer last season – replaced before half-time. The game was played behind closed doors and the nature of the injury is not yet known.

“At the moment it’s too early but it’s put a bit of a dampener on the day for me really in terms of what we wanted from it,” Moore said. “We wanted the players to feel stretched but what we didn’t want was to lose a player.

“The perfect pre-season is coming through the volume, coming through the minutes and high intensity in the games and getting no injuries. Unfortunately, today we have suffered an injury but to what extent, I’m not sure until speaking with the medical team with their diagnosis.”

There were further concerns over the fitness of senior men Callum Paterson and Liam Palmer, while Julian Börner also sat out ahead of a reported switch to German side Hannover 96.

Moore said there was little to worry about with the trio.

“We had a couple out with sickness and illness really. Callum Paterson and Liam Palmer didn’t quite make the squad today, Julian also so we had a few seniors out but again in this heat, this intensity, the last thing I wanted to do was bring them down and mix them with the squad.

“As much as you want your squad out to work on things, if they’re not right, they’re not right so we took the decision in the early part of the day to exclude them.”

West Brom won out through a Matt Phillips double.

On the match itself, Moore said: “We got what we wanted in terms of a real tough opponent, I wanted the team to feel really stretched out there and we got that against some real quality.

“I wanted the players to feel the impact when they gave the ball away in silly positions or give the ball away unnecessarily to good quality players. It’s things like that, that can hurt and punish you.”