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Owls boss Dave Challinor hopes Max Lowe has not suffered a fresh injury, stating his importance to the team.

Lowe came on in the second-half of Sheffield Wednesday’s FA Cup defeat to Oldham Athletic. The defender, who had started the previous three games, was not risked from the beginning and was introduced with 20 minutes remaining, playing another half an hour as the tie went to extra-time. The 29-year-old made a positive contribution, playing an influential part in The Owls’ equaliser.

Wednesday started with the right-footed Jordi Liongola, who was making his first appearance since the opening day of the season, at left-back. When Lowe came on the side looked more balanced - something Challinor hopes to be able to call upon again, starting with the visit of Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

“I thought Max made a really significant difference when he came on,” he told The Star. “He's felt something. I hope there's nothing in that because the profile of him and what he does from that area will be important. Quite evidently, when you're playing somebody right-footed on that side, there's going to be an imbalance. But our hand really was forced with the players that we've got out.

“Obviously, Plymouth is a really, really important game for us, and without prioritising, it’s probably more important than what this is. We had a team out there that I felt could win, but we didn't want to be in a situation where we were risking anybody. We already have got players out. Hopefully, we'll have some back, but that's going to be where we're at.”

It was a far from straightforward first game in charge for Challinor. As well as having several players out injured, Wednesday lost Harry Gray in the warm-up to a hip problem and then goalkeeper Ashley Maynard-Brewer was forced off early on after a collision with Mike Fondop. Others like Liongola, Ricardo Santos and Liam Palmer were unable to play 90 minutes, while Di’ Shon Bernard has not long returned from a serious injury. Going forward, Challinor hopes the injury situation can ease up so he can make more attacking changes.

“It’s hard because you're planning substitutions for defenders, which isn't ideal, and it's not something you do,” Challinor said. “I think you look at the majority of teams, and pretty much every team I've managed, you want to try and make positive changes that influence the game. Now that might be a defender at times to influence a shape change, but we're having to make substitutions because, excuse me, players can't complete 90 minutes. Which, again, as a minimum, we need to rely on defenders to be able to do that. And they've got to work towards it.

“Now, there can be reasons and excuses for some things. Some players obviously have been out injured and missed parts of the season. Jordi probably lasted longer than we thought. He was due for 45 minutes. Rico's obviously not done a great deal, and Dish hasn't played played 90 minutes for 18 months. But we have to get to a point where we can rely on what we've got at the back, and we can make positive attacking changes if we need to. We did that just in terms of Yan coming inside and being a right-sided centre-back in our build and being able to step in with the ball. And Max did it really well, obviously for the goal. I would love to have been able to do that from the start, but personnel again dictates that wasn't the case. So we've got some things that we need to deal with. We need players back, but we've got to improve, and the only way we improve is by doing the things we talk about every day.”