Sheffield Wednesday boss Darren Moore provides the latest update on Josh Windass, George Byers, Callum Paterson and Michael Ihiekwe

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY manager Darren Moore has confirmed that Josh Windass won't be involved in their Easter games with Oxford United and Accrington, but is confident that Callum Paterson will be back in the fray in the near future.

Windass has been sidelined since coming off with a foot injury in the League One game with Bolton Wanderers on March 17 and his absence is being keenly felt by Wednesday, whose automatic promotion bid has been rocked by a five-match winless sequence.

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The unavailability of George Byers, out picking up a muscle injury in the win at Portsmouth on March 11, is also hitting the Owls hard.

Moore admits that he does not expect the influential midfielder to be back 'any time soon' - although he is not ruling him out from returning before the end of the season on May 7.

Darren Moore.Darren Moore.
Darren Moore.

Better news has seen Paterson - sidelined since suffering a hamstring injury in the win over Plymouth on February 4 - and Michael Ihiekwe - who has been out since damaging knee ligaments in the FA Cup tie with Mansfield Town in November - return to training.

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On Windass and Byers, Moore, also currently without Jack Hunt (calf) said: "Josh still needs more work and detail from a medical point of view. He's making good progress, but not in time for this game.

"It will definitely rule him out for the Easter weekend, but we will keep trying him week after week. We just want the symptoms to settle down.

"Once they do, we can give more of a prognosis and a time. We are still very much hopeful that he's got a large part of the season to play. Even at this stage.

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"George is a little bit more complex and longer with the injury he sustained. We don't predict George for any time soon, but we may see him before the end of the season."

Offering an update on Paterson and Ihiekwe, the Owls boss added: "The two back in training are Paterson and Iky. From that perspective, what we are just trying to do is give them the volume of work they need to do when they are integrating back in with the main group.

"We will monitor them over the next week.

"Probably if you detail the two at this stage, I'd probably say Pato is the one nearer. We feel he's really near and are looking at him in terms of volume and recovery time from training."