Key Sheffield Wednesday update – Garry Monk speaks about Alex Hunt, Osaze Urhoghide, Chey Dunkley and Korede Adedoyin’s registration

The Owls face Bristol this Sunday in their third Championship game of the season, and many changes to the starting XI are expected as Monk and his side seek to bounce back from their Carabao Cup exit at the hands of Fulham earlier in the week.

Alex Hunt missed that game due to a knee knock, Osaze Urhoghide and Chey Dunkley remain on the comeback trial, while new signing, Korede Adedoyin, was forced to wait for his debut due to a hold-up over his paperwork and the English Football League.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference today, the Owls boss gave an update on the quartet, and it seems to be a positive situation:

Hunt hope

“He’ll be back in today, everyone had a recovery day yesterday, so he’ll come back in and be assessed. But I don’t think it’s anything serious, and we’re very hopeful that he’ll be available for the weekend.”

Big O’s comeback

“I’ve got a good idea of how he did (in the U23s)… The main thing was letting him get a good feel to playing in a football match again. Him doing that is a major step forward, he might need a little bit more of that – maybe build him up to 70 minutes or to see how it goes – but he’s a fit lad so maybe it’s 90 minutes.

“When lads are out for over a four week period, even though they do a lot of training and rehabilitation, you need to get those minutes in. It’s about the final tick boxes… He’s done great, and we’ll keep assessing him as we go along.”

Dunkley drive

“He’s not far behind… You assess them every day. They’re both (Dunkley and Urhoghide) out on the grass, they’re both involved, and it’s just a case of each day you push them a little bit harder, a little step further forward and see how they react.

“He’s a little bit further behind O, but not by far, so we’ll see. He’s very, very close though, it just depends on how far we can push. He’s eager to do it though, he’s one of them where you have to sometimes rein him back in rather than push him because he doesn’t need pushing.

Adedoy-in or out?

“I haven’t spoken to the club since the game, so I’ll be speaking to them today and hopefully everything will be sorted on that side of it.”

A 2-0 win against Cardiff City and a 0-0 draw with Watford has seen the Owls shave four points off their 12-point deduction, and they’ll be desperate to keep chipping away at it in the southwest this weekend.

You don’t have to go far back to find the last meeting between the two at Ashton Gate, with the Owls picking up a 2-1 victory back in June as the 2019/20 season was being brought to a close.

More Owls news

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