Henrik Pedersen explains how he had to manage key Sheffield Wednesday duo vs QPR
Henrik Pedersen is having to manage Sheffield Wednesday’s senior players as carefully as he possibly can.
Sheffield Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen has revealed he had to try and equally manage Dominic Iorfa’s and Liam Palmer’s loads after they traded places in the second half of Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at QPR.
Iorfa, who joined Wednesday almost seven years ago, started the lunchtime clash at Loftus Road, lining up on the right of the back-three. He was joined in defence by youngsters Gabriel Otegbayo and Cole McGhee.
Playing for a fourth time in just ten days, Wednesday’s depleted squad was pushed to its absolute maximum in the capital, so much so Pedersen was only able to name three players over the age of 22 in his starting XI, while Nathan Redmond and Palmer were the only senior figures on the bench.
Both Palmer and Redmond were introduced not long after half-time to try and offer Wednesday some freshness, and the former came on to replace Iorfa after 55 minutes, meaning Pedersen made a like-for-like change at right-sided centre-back.
Both Iorfa and Palmer have racked up no shortage of minutes this season, so much so they have already played more than 1,500 minutes more than they did in the Championship last season combined.
Pedersen addresses Iorfa/Palmer switch
Understandably, Pedersen was left with no choice but to manage them carefully, telling The Star: "It was a very, very young team and Liam... I should combine Liam and Dom because they both played very, very much so they should split the game. We knew that before the game.
"So it was a young team, but, as I said, the mix of the few senior players with the young is still a strong team and how they work together with this togetherness, the culture is great.”
Asked if he always planned to swap Iorfa for Palmer in the second half, Pedersen added: "He (Iorfa) should play between 45 and 60 minutes, and I hope we took him out before something [happened]. He could start to feel that it was more tight, but I hope there is no injury."