'We want an identity...' - Sheffield Wednesday future academy hopes

Henrik Pedersen has had to use a lot of Sheffield Wednesday academy players this season - more than he'd have liked.

But that doesn’t mean that the Owls boss is against using youngsters. The Dane has a history in helping set structures in place due to his background in the Red Bull system, and he’s proved in tough circumstances in recent months how he’s able to improve up-and-coming players.

Now, with hopes of a new dawn for the club, it’s understood that there’s a desire to reassess the way that Wednesday’s academy works, with hopes of using it to create a more sustainable football club going forward.

Players such as Pierce Charles, Gabriel Otegabyo, Sean Fusire, Ernie Weaver, George Brown and Jarvis Thornton have all benefited from the club’s tough situation off the pitch, and all managed to make a mark on what has been a tremendously difficult campaign.

Going forward Pedersen wants to see more of the same on that front, but have it be by design rather than by necessity. Speaking in a recent interview with The Wednesday Word, he spoke of a change in the way that the club scouts players, and we’ve already reported of the Arise consortium’s commitment to making sure the club’s academy doesn’t drop into Category 3.

Sean Fusire of Sheffield Wednesday. Image: Alex Young

For Pedersen, he wants a situation where Wednesday have a functioning youth setup that benefits not just the football elements of SWFC, but the club as a whole.

“The talent identification in our club has often been with older players,” he explained to TWW. “In many of the last months we’ve been forced to play with younger players because we didn’t have the money to do something else. But for me, we have to create a top academy here in England so that we can create our own players. You can feel what it means to the fans have players from Sheffield running out at Hillsborough and putting on good performances.

“We want to have a business model, a sustainable business model, and the more players you develop, the more you develop who can be effective, you can create better results but also more value to sell players and use the money to develop the next ones…

“We want to have a clear identity on the football side, but also on the human side - how we’re developing human beings. On top of that, we want an identity of how we find young players, how we scout them and how we integrate them in the first team.

“I hope that next season we can have a good pathway, and that more can be integrated into the first team. So many of them have got good experience this year, so I cannot see why there shouldn’t be more next season.

“We have players like Pierce and Gab, Sean and Ernie and George and Jarvis, who have grown a lot, and I can see them being an important part of the first team next season.”

You can watch the full interview here:

Thanks for being part of The Wednesday Word family. Your fiver a month helps fund the entire project - whether it’s the articles, the YouTube or the social media platforms. So your support is hugely appreciated!