The Owls have signed nine new players since last season.
Former Sheffield Wednesday defender Jon Newsome was critical of the club’s summer recruitment drive during an appearance on Sheffield Live TV last night (Thursday).
The Owls have added nine new faces since losing last season’s Championship play-off final, of which ex-Premier League trio Steven Fletcher, Almen Abdi and Adam Reach are perhaps the most notable.
Consequently, head coach Carlos Carvalhal has at his disposal one of the division’s most populous squads, with 29 players assigned shirt numbers.
Newsome, though, believes more attention should have been paid to two areas in particular.
“If you look at the back of the programme it’s embarrassing really that (Tuesday’s opponents) Bristol City have got 23/24 players and Sheffield Wednesday are nearly off the page there’s that many pros down there. You’re looking at 40-odd professionals,” Newsome, who had two spells at Hillsborough in the 1990s, told Sheffield Live TV.
“I think that we have signed good players but I don’t think we’ve necessarily strengthened the areas which we possibly needed to strengthen.
“I think we needed to strengthen at centre-half and I think we needed to strengthen at full-back.”
Wednesday’s defensive frailties were perhaps best highlighted by August’s 3-1 defeat at Burton Albion, in which they fielded one recognised central defender – Sam Hutchinson – and finished with left-back Daniel Pudil in the middle.
Since then, though, the Owls have re-signed centre-back Vincent Sasso and brought in versatile Dutchman Urby Emanuelson to provide cover for Pudil on the left.
In his pre-Bristol City press conference, Carvalhal reacted strongly to the suggestion his squad is too big, telling BBC Radio Sheffield: “We have the correct squad, absolutely. Please finish with this. It doesn’t make sense.”
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