Sheffield Wednesday favourite Sam Hutchinson battling through to offer best form

Sam Hutchinson is in some of the best form of his Sheffield Wednesday career after shepherding the Owls to back-to-back league clean sheets for second time since August on Tuesday evening.
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The former Chelsea youth player, who has played the majority of his Wednesday career as a holding midfielder before reverting to a regular spot in defence this season, spoke to the media a couple of weeks ago.

He explained that while he rarely feels 100% in terms of fitness is confident he can manage an injury that kept him out of action for 12 league matches late last year.

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Only Liam Palmer won more tackles than Hutchinson in Wednesday’s win over Morecambe on Tuesday evening and it’s no surprise that he has proven to be tidy on the ball, as well, with his pass accuracy percentage of 87% beaten only by Josh Windass (95%) and Fisayo Dele-Bashiru (96%).

Sheffield Wednesday defender Sam Hutchinson.Sheffield Wednesday defender Sam Hutchinson.
Sheffield Wednesday defender Sam Hutchinson.

“I’ve always seen myself as a defender,” Hutchinson said. “I’ve only ever played midfield for Sheffield Wednesday, I never played anywhere but defence when I was younger.

“I came back early. It’s probably why I do get injuries because I will do that, I have no problem doing that. I try do what is best for the team.

“At the time we didn’t have any centre-backs so it needed to happen. That’s what you do when you play professional football.”

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Opening up on his late 2021 injury, Hutchinson gave an insight into his commitment to the Wednesday cause.

With Harlee Dean having hobbled out of the Morecambe fixture, it may be that the 32-year-old is asked to play more often than originally planned in a manic fixture schedule over the next few weeks.

He said: “I had tears in both of my achilles and I had been playing with them since Fleetwood. Until it had been properly diagnosed we didn’t know what was going on.

“It was frustrating but sometimes you get injured. I hadn’t been injured for a long time and it was just something I had to deal with.

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“It’s about managing it. The tendons take a while to manage. The pitches are different [across the league], they’re hard some of them, so it’s just about managing it.

“Hopefully now I can crack on properly.”