Henrik Pedersen will not be ‘gambling’ with his team selection in terms of injuries for the opening day at Leyton Orient.

Sheffield Wednesday start life back in League One at Brisbane Road on Saturday. Both sides have new squads for different reasons, with Orient’s down to on-pitch struggles last season where they survived the drop to League Two on the final weekend.

In terms of early team news, summer signing Ricardo Santos is yet to feature in pre-season so it could be deemed a risk to throw him straight in. Fellow experienced centre-back Liam Cooper has only managed 45 minutes and was absent from the win against Bolton a week ago. Another new addition, Billy Mitchell, also missed out in the Carabao Cup, while Louie Barry was only ready to come off the bench.

With 45 more league fixtures after Orient, Pedersen has the bigger picture to think about. “If what we do, I think it's not to gamble,” he told The Star. “I think we do it very conscious with the advice from the doctor and from the physical coach. So basically, strategy, very conscious knowledge behind the decision we're making.”

Unsurprisingly, the Owls boss kept his cards close to his chest when it came to revealing who is available, although he hinted that not everyone is training at full tilt.

On Santos and Cooper, he explained: “Everyone has trained today on different level, so everything go in the right direction with the whole squad for the fitness. Something is the level. The other thing is how much they are training. But they are in the right direction, both, and yeah, this is what I can say now.”

And on Barry and Mitchell, he added: “Louie has had a good week again now, and Billy also start to train regularly. It’s two quality players, (they are going) in the right direction. But we also have a team that did it well last week.”