Liam Palmer’s Sheffield Wednesday situation explained - Xisco answers ‘big player’ absence queries

Palmer was one of several of last season’s most prominent players to start on the bench, with Michael Smith, George Byers, Will Vaulks and Cameron Dawson also left out of the starting line-up.

Byers is another player on the comeback trail after sitting out of the opening evening defeat to Southampton, while Smith fell to illness in midweek. The pair combined to offer Wednesday a consolation goal late on having come off the bench.

Lee Gregory and Josh Windass - two players who starred in the Owls’ successful play-off campaign - were taken off with half an hour to go as Xisco sought to inject fresh legs. Marvin Johnson and Reece James missed out altogether.

Xisco has spoken at length about the need to shift to a new style of play at S6.

Queried about a perceived turnover in personnel - only three new players started at the MKM Stadium - the Spaniard told The Star: “You are asking about who doesn’t play.

“Ask me about who does play. It’s important we are talking about who is playing, what we need about [Ashley] Fletcher, what we need about Mike [Ihiekwe], what we need about Will [Vaulks], what we need about keeper. This is the question.

“Right now [against Hull], you maybe think I make a mistake about not putting in [Reece] James and I put Akin [Famewo] in. Maybe, sure.

“But if we are thinking that every player who is out is better than who is in, then I make a mistake every time? It is important that we try to improve who is in and that we try to improve the performance, no? This is what we are thinking.”

On Palmer - who travelled to Germany for surgery having felt an issue in his groin in much of the second half of the last campaign - Xisco said: “Liam is working every day very hard, it’s been 10 days since he started playing with us, we gave him 15 minutes another day and so on. In the game against Luton and Southampton, 15 minutes.

“He needs to improve he physical condition because he had an operation.

“We try to put out best the best 11, the best squad. After, for me, we have to be more consistent about what we want and what the Championship demands of us.

“Maybe you are thinking it’s what I want? No.

“The Championship demands good concentration, 100 per cent physical condition in all actions, the Championship demands important duels in offence and in attack.”