David Wagner revealed fitness levels played a major part in his first team selection as Huddersfield Town manager.
The new boss caused plenty of debate when he named the starting XI to face Sheffield Wednesday, which included Kyle Dempsey at left back, while new loan signing Ben Chilwell sat on the bench and Jason Davidson was left out of the match day squad.
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However, the German insisted that naming Dempsey in defence was merely a result of having the chance to work with him in training while Jason was absent on international duty.
"For our style need unbelievably good fitness," said Wagner after the full time whistle.
"We had to find a left back in the squad in the last two weeks because Jason wasn't with us. He worked with the team once yesterday and his legs couldn't be fresh after Australia.
"Ben has only been with the team two days, so Kyle was the man we chose because he has done well in the last two weeks.
"He is a very intelligent player and he gave us the assist today."
James Vaughan and Jamie Paterson were also absent from the squad at Hillsborough, although no injury update had been given on either at the pre-match press briefing.
Again it was match fitness that played the key role in the decision, with Wagner revealing that neither player had been able to train fully with the squad for long enough to be considered for the game, which ended in a 3-1 defeat.
"It all depends on how they are able to work in the last two weeks," argued the boss. "Jamie only practised on Thursday and Friday, and for our style we need very good fitness and he isn't able to have this.
"It was the same with James Vaughan. We had 15 training sessions and he was only able to do 5 or 6 so we need to build up the fitness of these players. They are both important players for us."
Town v SWFC
While Wagner admitted the loss to the Owls contained ups and downs with plenty to work on, he said the support from the travelling fans couldn't have been better, even if he understands most will have left bitterly disappointed with the loss.
He added: "The support was perfect. It was very good to see so many supporters come with us to Sheffield.
"It was unlucky we were not able to make them happy with our result. Hopefully they saw we played a good 70 minutes and everybody recognised we tried to bring something new to our game.
"It was a first step, the result is unlucky and I accept everybody is disappointed - me too! But if we look at the performance in the first 70 minutes it was good, so we have to work out the last 20."
