Sheffield Wednesday pre-season to start today - opening days to be taken by sports science staff

The players are due to report for work for the first time since their Wembley heroics 32 days on and will start preparations for their return to the Championship.

A tight-knit group of 14 senior players will make up the bulk of the group attending the session, which, as is routine for the opening days of pre-season, is understood to be based around individual testing methods designed to gauge where player fitness is at after a long season and a few weeks hard-earned rest.

Even without new signings, the number involved in pre-season will likely be much higher than 14. Wednesday have a number of young players with the likes of Ciaran Brennan, Pierce Charles and Rio Shipston among those expected to play a part in the summer programme.

It is commonplace for young players to take part in pre-season - both training and matchday - regardless of squad size.

Since the departure of manager Darren Moore and backroom figures Jamie Smith, Jimmy Shan, Simon Ireland and Adriano Basso earlier this month, Wednesday will also be working with a scaled-back coaching team.

While far from ideal, that will not present too much of a problem in the opening days of the summer programme, given it will largely be carried out by sports science staff - as is routine at this time of year.

The likes of Neil Thompson, Steve Haslam, Andy Holdsworth and goalkeeping coach Nicky Weaver all have first team coaching experience of differing scale.

It had been suggested that Wednesday would be working towards having a new manager in place at this point, though the wait for an unveiling goes on.