Sheffield Wednesday academy plan outlined as manager sends out 'very important' message
Sheffield Wednesday progressed to the knockout stages of the Jersey Mike’s Trophy with a 2-0 win at Hillsborough on Tuesday night.
Manager Henrik Pedersen has said the Jersey Mike’s Trophy offers Sheffield Wednesday the opportunity to try and promote more youngsters to the first-team squad.
The Owls progressed to the knockout stages of the competition with a game to spare on Tuesday night after beating Sunderland’s Under-21s 2-0 at Hillsborough via goals either side of half-time from Jaden Heskey and Barry Bannan.
Despite making six changes to the side that started the 2-1 win over Salford City just over a fortnight ago, Pedersen still named a strong line-up for the visit of the Black Cats youngsters, featuring the likes of Ricardo Santos, Liam Palmer, Billy Mitchell, Callum Slattery and Mason Burstow.
However, the Owls boss once again found room in the starting line-up for youngster Joel Akpobi, who impressed in the win over Salford, while fellow youngsters Denny Oliver, Samuel Duruh and Kailen Hatfield were among the substitutes.
Having handed Akpobi his second start in as many games and Oliver his Wednesday debut, Pedersen is keen to bring more youngsters into the fold as they attempt to make names for themselves at Hillsborough.
"We want to win a lot of games with the first-team and we want to create this winning culture,” Pedersen told The Star. “But we also want to develop the next player for the first-team at Sheffield Wednesday from the academy, and here it's very important that we also integrate the young players to get game minutes in the first team.
"We have worked a lot with the U21 players now in the national team break, and that many of them also get game practise tonight, of course, it's positive."
Akpobi, who signed his first professional contract at Hillsborough last month, started on the left wing for the second game running and once again showed flashes of his pace and technical quality.
Reflecting on Akpobi’s performance, Pedersen added: “I think Salford was really strong. Today, he had a very strong opponent, the right-back from Sunderland. It was a big challenge for him.
“He matched him physically, maybe even more than him, but you can see he’s working hard and has a lot of courage. If he loses a one-v-one duel next time, he has the courage to do it again, so I’m really happy with those two games.”