Youngsters at Sheffield Wednesday will have their fates finalised in the coming weeks with meetings held over the future direction of the club’s youth ranks.

Senior boss Danny Röhl was part of a meeting early this week during which the prospects of the Owls’ youth cohort were discussed - including who may be ready to step into an opportunity to impress in the first team’s pre-season programme.

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It’s the time of year when rafts of young players all over the country are told whether they will be kept on at their clubs or not, with many trials taking place as soon-to-be out-of-contract prospects head out to find alternative options should their contracts be coming to a permanent close.

Röhl told The Star last month that talks were planned with newly-installed academy manager Jonathan Pepper, who he said has new ideas with regard to the recruitment and use of players in the youth ranks. For now, the focus is on setting things up for the summer.

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“We had the meeting at the beginning of the week, we spoke about the squad for the under-21s for the next week,” Röhl continued. “It was a topic about who could potentially be a part of our squad in the pre-season. I said this before, it should always be the case that we always have three players from the academy with us, especially in pre-season, to see how far off they are.

“These are the talks we have to have. The picture is clear for the under-21s, they all have to do something of course. Some players have to go, some players we will keep or we have to loan them to see where is the development. All these things we will do and then make final decisions for a a lot of things in the next weeks.”