Sheffield Wednesday teenager Yisa Alao has 'wowed' Henrik Pedersen - but Owls must be careful
Sheffield Wednesday coaches have been blown away by the potential of baby-faced prospect Yisa Alao, but know the next steps of his development must be handled with care.
The 16-year-old wide man came off the bench in Tuesday evening’s Carabao Cup defeat to Grimsby Town and caught the eye in bright effort at left wing-back. The first year scholar is a product of the Owls academy having been with the club since joining as an under-seven. Having made his debut in an earlier round at Bolton Wanderers, he replaced Olaf Kobacki to play over an hour at Hillsborough.
Alao impressed with his daring approach to attack and stuck to his task manfully going the other way, successfully competing in five aerial duels. Speaking after the match, manager Henrik Pedersen spoke with huge enthusiasm about the youngster, who played without a sponsor on his shirt as he is too young to advertise gambling.
“As soon as he came on they tried to bring extra people to his side,” Pedersen smiled. “But he grew through the battle and wow. One of the important skills you need to have as a young player is to adapt; to adapt to the level, to new players and to everything. It was really, really good.
“He has had a really good development, he has played 18s and 21 and then for us at Bolton. He's a great young player, wow. We have to be very careful with him. Just to have a normal training week for at a Championship level is very tough for him. That's the big challenge for us, to do it all individually (a programme designed for each player).
“It's good that he has had match practice with us now and that he has trained with us but now we go into having close dialogue with the under-18s and under-21s to make a good week plan for him and take his development step by step.”
Alao is one of a number of young players to have featured in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup campaign. The senior squad is threadbare in numbers and with injury issues mounting, more focus could well be placed on bringing some of the more talented teenagers further into first team training and indeed league action. As things stand, a slow and steady individual approach is intended not only for Alao but for his academy colleagues.
“Of course we have a lot of young guys involved in the first team because this is the only way we can play 11 v11 (in training), Pedersen said. “But at the same time we need to be careful there because we need them to grow fast and have them in the first team. We try to do all we can to integrate them as quickly as possible but also have some individual restriction so we don't overload them.”