What Sheffield Wednesday boss Dave Challinor learned from young side's defeat to Accrington
Sheffield Wednesday’s youngsters were beaten 4-0 by Acccrington Stanley in the Jersey Mike’s Trophy at Hillsborough
Sheffield Wednesday boss Dave Challinor admitted nothing in his side’s performance in losing to Accrington Stanley came as much of a shock.
A very young Owls team, featuring a number of debutants, were undone by two goals in each half from the visitors in front of a crowd of 5,472 at Hillsborough, in a Jersey Mike’s Trophy match that meant very little save from those who pulled on the shirt and their families in the stand.
One notable name on the teamsheet, though, was highly-rated striker George Brown who continued his recovery from injury by starting the game before being replaced at the break.
Wednesday were already through and with much bigger fish to fry when they take on Plymouth at the weekend so Challinor elected to put out an inexperienced team for his first home match in charge and it brought about a result that came as no real surprise.
“It's tough because it almost becomes like a pre-season game really where you're expecting there to be little cohesion because you're chucking a group together that don't train together on separate sites, put together really last minute in terms of what it looked like,” he said.
“Probably making decisions on some players, even within the group we've got, whether they're able and some injuries. Obviously George (Brown) coming back and playing 45 minutes and having to make structured substitutions. So I went into it not expecting loads, understanding what it would look like.
“Young players are special, but more so young players are still very young and still make mistakes. And that was probably what the game looked like from our perspective.”
In terms of the positives, Challinor has now been able to run his eye over the full breadth of players available to him as he goes about trying to get Wednesday on track for promotion following his arrival at the club a little over a week ago following the departure of Henrik Pedersen.
“I suppose what I expected really,” Challinor said when asked if he can take anything from the match. “The one thing it has done, it means I've seen pretty much every player over the time I've been at the club in terms of first team fixtures, youth team fixtures, a mixture of what it looked like today. But understanding where priorities were and what was most important.
“There's some things, like I said, that will be good tonight from the fact that some young players have made their debuts and a really proud moment for them and things that they'll remember. Obviously challenges, which there's going to be, but for all of them, they should be better for the experience, whether it's good or bad, and should stand them in good stead hopefully moving forward on the start of their journeys.”