Henrik Pedersen's Sheffield Wednesday youngsters coping well in 'deep water'
Henrik Pedersen says he would have liked to have drip-fed some of Sheffield Wednesday's youngsters into the first team, rather than play so many at once.
George Brown, Bruno Fernandes, Joe Emery, Will Grainger, Reece Johnson, Jarvis Thornton and Ernie Weaver made their senior debuts in August. Gui Siqueira's only previous experience came in three FA Cup ties in 2023-24, ad Cole McGhee played three times for Chorley in Conference North.
Even some of the more established faces have been pretty fresh with Pierce Charles, Gabriel Otegbayo and Bailey Cadamertei all 20, a year younger than Charlie McNeill.
The loan signing they were allowed to make on deadline day to help the squad was younger still, with Manchester United's Harry Amass only 18.
There has still been some experience, with Barry Bannan and Liam Palmer both in the all-time top 10 for Wednesday appearances, but it is hard to argue with manager Pedersen's assessment that his Owlets have been thrown into "deep water".
Yet the youngest sides have had the most success, winning through to a League Cup third-round tie at home to Grimsby Town on September 16 on the back of penalty shoot-out wins over Bolton Wanderers and Leeds United.
"It has been tough for the under-21s to come into deep water in the first team," said Pedersen. "We have a senior group of 14 or 15 players.
"Normally you have more and you integrate two or three (young) players. We have fewer senior players and a lot of young players.
"One challenge is to reach the level of them and sometimes it's easier if you play with good players to be good yourself.
"We have some really good senior players as a mirror they can learn from, but it's much easier for them if there were fewer (youngsters). It's also a challenge for the senior players to keep the level up.
"But how the senior players have handled this is amazing, and how the young players try to do the best they can so they feel they can also give something to the senior players has also been amazing.
"It's a challenge with too many young players at the same time but I think the boys have handled it really well. "