Luhukay was appointed as Sheffield Wednesday’s manager six weeks ago.
Sheffield Wednesday academy manager Steven Haslam has explained why Jos Luhukay has been ‘different class’ since arriving at Hillsborough.
Luhukay succeeded Carlos Carvalhal at the start of January and has already handed debuts to a trio of Haslam’s youngsters.
Those three, Jordan Thorniley, Frederik Nielsen and Sean Clare, are among eight Owls academy players overall who have been named in at least one of Luhukay’s matchday squads – albeit as a result of an unprecedented injury crisis.
And according to Haslam, the Dutchman already has his eye on the next batch coming through at Middlewood Road.
“I’ve got to say, since Jos came in I’ve had a lot of meetings with him and from an academy point of view he’s been different class, in terms of how he’s embraced what we’re doing, the interest he’s taken in the training sessions and the involvement of players with the first team,” said Haslam – who himself came through Wednesday’s youth set up – during an interview with Sheffield Live TV on Thursday.
“To give an example, it was a day off for the first team today but he came in and was watching the under-18s train at the training ground. To have the manager show that much interest in your youth department is very encouraging.”
In his entire two-and-a-half years at Sheffield Wednesday, Luhukay’s predecessor Carlos Carvalhal only handed debuts to five academy products – Joe Wildsmith, Cameron Dawson, Connor O’Grady, James Murphy and George Hirst.
And though he was also afflicted by the Owls’ injury crisis in his final weeks as manager at Hillsborough, the Portuguese was reluctant to look below the first team for reinforcements.
However, in Carvalhal’s defence, both Thorniley and Clare were on loan at other clubs at the time of his departure by mutual consent.
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