Henrik Pedersen reason for Ike Ugbo's Sheffield Wednesday absence leaves questions
Ike Ugbo was not injured for Sheffield Wednesday’s midweek trip to Norwich City - with Henrik Pedersen electing to name two rookie youngsters in his place.
The Canada international was reintegrated into the squad after the closure of the January transfer window following a stint of nine matches without an appearance that was initially put down to a hamstring issue. A deadline day loan switch to a League One side came and went after a change in the market allowed the suitor club to bring in another player. Ugbo has since made two substitute appearances including 19 minutes off the bench in Sunday’s Steel City derby defeat.
Ugbo did not travel to Norfolk for the match, which saw a desperately young Wednesday side lose 2-0 to the in-form Canaries. Jamal Lowe started as a central forward, with Jerry Yates coming on as a substitute alongside young Will Grainger, who made his Championship debut. Another striker, Devlan Moses, was an unused sub.
Asked why Ugbo had not been named in the squad, Owls boss Pedersen shrugged and said: “I chose other players for tonight. It’s just that. I took the squad that I thought would be the best squad for today.”
Pushed on the reason he had come to that decision, the Dane continued: “We spoke in the coaching group about which team we wanted to bring today. We rotated, Jerry was on the bench so we needed one fewer striker to bring here. We took Jerry, we wanted Devlan and we also had Will on the bench with us.”
Goals for Mathais Kvistgaarden and Paris Maghoma put Norwich well into the ascendancy in a breezy second half for the home side. The match came on another eventful day of off-the-pitch news as the club’s preferred bidders withdrew from the process. Pedersen said it was a case of keeping on keeping on.
“Before the game we spoke with the whole situation, what we can control and what we can’t. It is about bringing all that we can to bring a good performance in the next game after relegation. There was a lot of emotion in the derby, a lot of performance, to come to Norwich to play against a strong collective team is tough.
“For the first 20 minutes we were a good part of the game. And then it was deeper down. But they are a strong team... The boys worked so hard and you could see we were not fresh from the derby and they had a day extra.
“We had to run a lot, we had phases in the game but you could see at the end with the boys - they were dead. They have done everything they could. It’s a young team, two debuts today. I think the boys put everything on the pitch that they could.”