Sheffield Wednesday have dropped to 16th in the Championship.
Wednesday have won just one of their last seven Championship fixtures, dropping to 16th place in the process.
And during that time – barring the second half of this month’s defeat at Bolton – they have been without two of the previous two campaigns’ star men, in Fernando Forestieri and Sam Hutchinson.
The pair have either had or are having knee surgery, and look set to remain on sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Carvalhal revealed last week that while he hopes to have Forestieri back in January, the Italian forward’s recovery could last for up to four months longer than that.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese explained on Monday that Hutchinson will miss ‘some weeks’, but stressed it’s only a ‘little thing’.
He said: “We have two players that we don’t have really one player with the same abilities as them. One of them is Sam. It’s not easy to achieve a player with abilities of him. And Forestieri also.
“When you have a player like Fernando Forestieri, you don’t have a second Fernando Forestieri. You don’t have another player on the bench like him. You will not pay a lot of money [for him to be a substitute].”
The timing of Forestieri’s injury left Wednesday unable, even, to replace him via the loan market.
However, with Hutchinson initially sidelined in August, many fans will perhaps question why adequate cover wasn’t sought not just then but over the past 24 months, in which the former Chelsea man has missed 42 league games.
How badly have Forestieri and Hutchinson been missed by Sheffield Wednesday?
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