Sheffield Wednesday have confirmed their latest professional contract cohort.

Eight talented youngsters have been confirmed among Sheffield Wednesday’s new professional contract intake.

The Owls are in the process of entering into a new era in all areas of the club and the development of the youth set-up is central to that medium and long-term vision, with senior club figures having spoken about its importance to the sustainability of Wednesday’s future.

Each year a number of youngsters join the club on permanent professional deals, with this year’s cohort including two Wednesday academy graduates, a familiar long-term trialist and a handful of new faces from other clubs.

Aodhan Sopala and Kailen Hatfield are long-time Wednesday youngsters and featured in the Owls’ pre-season trip to Hungary and Austria and have both been handed deals, along with 20-year-old Josh Bayliss, the former Gillingham youth player who spent the majority of last season with the club’s youth sides on a trial basis and who paid much of his way to continue his time at Middlewood Road - though he missed out, he too is understood to have been a close consideration to head out that Budapest training camp.

Fortune Onoh, Joel Martin, Louis Poland, Will McPartland and Samuel Duruh, all 18, are the new confirmed additions.

Onoh is a former Grimsby Town midfielder who can also play as a right-back and featured three times for the Mariners in EFL Trophy football last season. Ex-Bradford City midfielder Martin has effectively been on trial with Wednesday since March and features centrally as a holding midfielder, while McPartland is an attacking right-back who played 38 times for Middlesbrough’s under-18 side last season and has spent some time training with the Owls first team this summer.

Samuel Duruh is a Nigeria-born forward who was last contracted to Kilmarnock and spent time on loan in Scottish non-league football last year. Left-back Louis Poland was one arrives from Everton’s under-18s having spent his formative years with Liverpool - both he and Martin featured in the pre-season friendly at Hallam FC.