Sheffield Wednesday dealt injury blow ahead of Ipswich Town trip as Henrik Pedersen makes January admission
Sheffield Wednesday look set to be without Nathaniel Chalobah for their trip to Ipswich Town.
The 31-year-old only recently returned from a lengthy lay-off, which was a continuation of the midfielder’s long-standing struggle with injuries.
He made appearances from the bench against Watford and Derby County but is a major doubt for Saturday’s (December 20) visit to Portman Road.
Not only is it a cruel setback for the one-time England international, it is a bitter blow for a thin squad in dire need of reinforcement.
Injury blow
Pedersen said: "Nate is out. I think he will not be a part of the game. He went in from training today so let's see what the scans say.
"There are a lot of players on the limit but we are ready to go and we're looking forward to the game.
“Right now, we have eight senior players with Championship experience and then we have a big group of under-21 players and today we also had some under-18 players integrated in training.”
Potential for senior players to be rested
Wednesday face a packed winter schedule and Pedersen has conceded senior players may need resting sooner or later.
He said: "It's necessary [to rest senior players] because there are days like today where we have eight senior players with Championship experience.
“We have to manage every single exercise, every single training session. We have to manage the whole load for the whole training, every single player, [and ask] 'how much can X player play against Ipswich and then against Hull [on Boxing Day]?'.
“We need to make a plan because senior players cannot play all the minutes. The risk for injury is too big and they cannot perform for 90 minutes every game. We will integrate the young players as we have done."
Takeover talks
The obvious course of action for most clubs in this predicament would be to recruit, but Wednesday are currently unable to add new faces to their first-team squad.
Pedersen’s men are battling on against the backdrop of a sale process being overseen by administrators.
Wednesday’s boss has been in discussion with administrator Kris Wigfield and there is hope progress could enable January transfer window business to be done.
He said: "I spoke yesterday with Kris and we're speaking very often, we have a good dialogue. I hope there will soon come a good solution for our club, for everyone. It will help many things, of course it will.
"We need players. I think he is working really hard to get it done as quick as possible so we have a chance to do something in January. But we also know it takes time to get everything done. Right now, we don't know who the new owner will be and we don't know the reaction from the EFL. There's a lot of questions open before we say what we can do in the January transfer window."