Owls’ fight with Blades delays contract plans

Manager Dave Jones has a total of nine players out of contract this summer including captain Rob Jones, goalkeeper Stephen Bywater and winger Jermaine Johnson.

The majority are keen to stay at Hillsborough but the size and length of their deals will hinge on the club’s divisional status next season.

With only three more league games to play, starting tomorrow at home to Carlisle United, the Owls are third in the table and four points behind second-placed Sheffield United.

If they fail to close the gap, the Owls – who cannot be caught by other clubs – will be involved in the play-offs.

Jones is happy that some of his players have, over the last few weeks, publicly expressed a desire to stay.

But the Owls manager made it clear yesterday that his club would be sticking to its guns and holding out until the summer.

“It shows you are doing something right within a football club when players want to stay,” he said. “It’s good because it also says they enjoy working at the club.

“But it’s difficult (at this stage) because you have to have two plans to work to and, until you actually know where you are, you can’t implement those plans.

“We are doing nothing new. It’s always the case for teams that go down this route,” he stressed.

“But it’s unfair at this stage because there are possibly another five or six weeks of the season to go.”

Other Wednesday players out of contract this summer are defenders Mark Beevers and Jon Otsemobor, goalkeepers Nicky Weaver and Richard O’Donnell, winger Chris Sedgwick and striker Clinton Morrison.

Of those nine players, only Bywater, Johnson and Beevers played in last weekend’s 1-1 draw at Colchester United.

Veteran striker Morrison is on loan at Brentford and a further appearance for the Owls would have triggered the offer of a new deal.

The Owls lost ground on the Blades last weekend but Jones insists there has been no need to lift his players mood.

The race for automatic promotion could be settled this weekend if the Blades win away at Milton Keynes Dons and the Owls lose to Carlisle. If the Blades win and the Owls only manage a draw, it would be more or less over, too, since the Blades have a lead of 13 in terms of goal difference.

“If you have got to lift your players for the play-offs, you have a problem,” said Jones. “If you have to lift your players to go into a life changing situation, such as getting into the next division, it is a problem.

“Anyone who gets into the top six shouldn’t be worried about lifting their players because it is an opportunity to play at Wembley and to get out of the division,” he added.

“But who knows what will happen this weekend? If we both win nothing is decided and we will have to go to the last two games.”

Unlike many of his contemporaries in the modern game, Jones has no time for playing mind-games with rival camps.

Such is the proximity of the two Sheffield clubs that any public utterance, however great or small, will reach the ears of someone across the city.

Asked whether he had now conceded second spot to the Blades, Jones said: “At the end of the day, you can say what you like. but if your team is focused on what they have to do, mind games don’t come into it.

“You hear it every week and I chuckle about it sometimes. You take a quote and all of a sudden it’s a big mind game. I might do crosswords now and again – but I don’t get into mind games. I don’t understand them.

“We have to keep winning and the team above us have to lose. There are no mind games – that’s a fact. And if you play mind games, people can stick it up in the dressing room and say ‘Look what they are saying about you’.

“I think you should just focus on what you have to do. The day you start delving into other people’s problems, and what they are trying to do, is the day you lose focus on what you are all about.”

The Owls are boosted by the return of striker Ryan Lowe and winger Keith Treacy for tomorrow’s game but defenders Julian Bennett (hamstring) and Reda Johnson (thigh) remain sidelined.

Lowe (groin) and Treacy (illness) both missed the trip to Colchester where they would have provided further options on the bench.

The absence of Benin international left-back Johnson, who suffered his injury during the 2-0 victory at Huddersfield Town three games ago, has been a bigger blow for the club especially with Bennett, the natural replacement, also on the sidelines.

Centre-back Beevers deputised against Colchester and Daniel Jones is another contender for the role.

Manager Jones is not ruling out a return to action for Johnson this season but says it is also important not to gamble with his fitness,

“We are trying to push him but we have to be careful,” he said. “If we push him too much, we could set him back. I hope we see him back soon. That would be good because it will mean we go into the last games, or the play-offs, with a fully-fit squad – which makes my job easier, not harder.”