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Summer signing Billy Mitchell has been ruled out of Sheffield Wednesday’s Carabao Cup clash against Bolton.

The Owls host the Championship side on Saturday in the first round of the competition. Normally played in midweek after the first league game, there has been a tweak to the schedule for this campaign, with their trip to Leyton Orient for the League One opener not until next weekend.

But Wednesday will be without Mitchell, who signed from Millwall this summer, for the cup tie. The central midfielder picked up a small injury against Oldham Athletic last weekend.

Pedersen told The Star: “He has not trained this week. I hope he will start training Sunday again. We have to get him into the rhythm I'm sure that in the next weeks that he will come very strong back and that he will be a very valuable player for Sheffield Wednesday in the future. And how he lead in the dressing room and how he act in the dressing room, he's a big asset for us.”

Meanwhile, there is bad news for young defender Cole McGhee, who was forced off just five minutes after coming on at half-time against Accrington with his arm in a sling, ruling him out for a long period.

“Yeah, he need surgery,” Pedersen told The Star. “I think he'll be out for four months or something. It’s disappointing, and it's sad for him. He had a good pre-season. But it has happened before for him, so now there was no other way than a surgery. So we need to have it done now.”

Providing more injury updates, Pedersen said that defenders Liam Cooper and Ricardo Santos are fit and have trained all week. Cooper played his first 45 minutes of pre-season against Accrington, while new signing Santos is yet to feature. Di’Shon Bernard is continuing his recovery from a long-term problem and is making good progress, with a possible runout in the middle of next month with the under-21s in the diary.

“Di'Shon is going really, really well. Next week we hope he can be a part of when we play small possession games, that he can be a neutral player in the end of the pitch, and we can start to integrate it now. He is working really hard, and you can see him grow everywhere. He grow as a leader in the group. He grow the physical level. He grow with what he's doing on the pitch, and you can feel he has the right focus. I'm really pleased to see what he's doing right now. “

When asked for a timescale for his return, Pedersen added: “We hope the middle of September that he can have his first games with the 21s. So this is the the goal what we are going for right now, but again we take it day-by-day, as all other things in in our club right now. We have a strategy for him, but we need to take it day-by-day and then get the best out of it because we want to press him.”