‘Real serious’ – Sheffield Wednesday boss explains Jack Hunt situation as fan favourite fights back

The Owls fan favourite has played just three games in League One this season after a throat infection meant a spell on the sidelines, and he’s now working his way back to full fitness after lengthy round of antibiotics and plenty of work on the training field.

Hunt played the full 90 minutes as Wednesday lost 3-2 to Burton Albion the other day, and his manager felt that he improved as it went on.

"He has come back from the virus he had,” Moore told the media. “He needs the match minutes. I thought Hunty's display was slow, but he grew into the game.

"The minutes will have done him good. When you have a virus that he has had, I can probably understand why his game was slow in patches.”

It’s not been an easy start to the season for the experienced defender, and Moore says that he’s now trying to push Hunt through to get him fit and firing again. Hence the decision to leave him on the field on Tuesday night.

He went on to say, "He got into the team, and then just as he started to get going he came down with the illness. It was a real serious one - he had antibiotics for over 10 days. We have had to build up his strength again.

"I left him on for 90 minutes because he looked like he needed it. Even though he blew up after around 70 minutes, I still wanted him to push on and get those further minutes in his legs.

"Hopefully over the weeks it will mean those minutes will stand us in good stead.”

Hunt played 40 league games for Wednesday last season as they narrowly missed out on promotion, before signing a new contract at Hillsborough over the summer.

He’ll now be looking to get back fit and fight for a starting spot in Moore’s Owls side as they take aim at automatic promotion this time around.

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