Sheffield Wednesday travel to Charlton Athletic on Saturday for their first game back in the third tier of English football since 2012 and they will be eager to get off to a positive start.

The game at Charlton represents a major chance for the Owls to lay down a marker and show that they mean business in League One this season. Should they get a positive result it will give them confidence for the rest of the campaign.

Following the Owls’ relegation to League One at the end of last season it has been a summer of change for Darren Moore’s side. There have been a number of departures with Sheffield Wednesday trimming down their wage bill dramatically.

That has seen the likes of Kadeem Harris, Tom Lees, Jordan Rhodes, Adam Reach, Moses Odubajo, Osaze Urhoghide, Joost van Aken, Keiren Westwood and Julian Borner all depart Hillsborough. That means just six players who started their final game of the 2020/21 campaign at Derby County are still with the Owls.

Those departures have left a lot of room in the squad that needed to be filled by incomings and Moore’s side have been making some shrewd signings over the last few weeks.

During the off-season the likes of Dennis Adeniran, Jaden Brown, Jack Hunt, George Byers, Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Lewis Wing, Florian Kamberi, Theo Corbeanu and Olamide Shodipo have all arrived to significantly bolster the options that Moore has to call upon.

In terms of potential team news heading into their opening fixture, the major injury blow for Wednesday has come with the news this week that Josh Windass had now undergone surgery for a troublesome hamstring injury.

The forward’s father Dean Windass confirmed that his son was set to be out for two months following his surgery which of course rules him out of action against Charlton.

However, there is more positive news with the likes of Barry Bannan, Callum Paterson, Dominic Iorfa and Massimo Luongo having been fit enough to make a return to the squad for the Owls’ League Cup tie against Huddersfield Town at Hillsborough last weekend.

All three of Bannan, Paterson and Iorfa all started while Luongo was on the bench despite them all having been doubts heading into the fixture.

Moore revealed in his pre-match press conference that Bannan had been taken off against Huddersfield Town as a precaution but revealed he will be fine for the Charlton game.

Shodipo was forced off the field against Huddersfield Town on his debut for the Owls and Darren Moore suggested that he did not know whether that was a hamstring issue or something wrong with his glute.

It was reported by the Sheffield Star that the attacker could be set to miss out on their opening game against Charlton. That comes with his hamstring injury thought to be worse than it was first hoped it would be. That is something that Moore has now confirmed in his pre-match press conference.

Meanwhile, new signing Kamberi has been granted international clearance and therefore has got the green light to feature for Sheffield Wednesday against Charlton if Moore believes he is ready to be called upon.