Sheffield Wednesday look to be heading into Saturday’s game with Coventry City without two key players after defender Di’Shon Bernard has been ruled out for the season and influential captain Barry Bannan is currently nursing an issue that’s kept him out of the last two matches with ‘mystery’ surrounding the timescale for his return.
The Owls skipper watched on from home as his side ground out an impressive 1-0 win at Swansea City on Wednesday evening, the second match he has sat out through injury on the spin. And there remains no firm indication of when he may return to contention, with manager Danny Röhl unable to narrow down a timescale from one week to six.
Svante Ingelsson stepped into Wednesday’s midfield alongside Shea Charles in South Wales to good effect, with Josh Windass taking on Bannan’s armband in a deeper role than usual.
“It is difficult to say,” Röhl told The Star when asked for a progress update on Bannan’s recovery ahead of the game against the Sky Blues. “It could be seven days, it could be six weeks, four weeks. We have to look how is the reaction. It is about the load management, controlling the reaction.
“It was in the QPR game he had a problem. We tried to manage it during the week and then after the Luton game he was not able to walk for three days. Now let’s see what it means in the following days.”
Bernard, meanwhile, has been ruled out for the rest of the campaign with a knee issue and has undergone surgery.
The Jamaica international was taken off late in the first half of the defeat at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday having received treatment on an issue a few minutes earlier. On both occasions he went to ground off the ball and looked in an emotional state when taken off, with Wednesday boss Danny Röhl later confirming fears the initial prognosis of the injury was ‘serious’.
It comes as a major blow to Wednesday in that the 24-year-old has been a near ever-present for the side and has started all but one Championship match this campaign outside of minor injury and suspension.
Discussion about this post