Inevitably the press have greeted the announcement as the club showing off its strength in depth, which obviously ignores the fact that the two games were originally scheduled for different days.
The trip to Hillsborough should have been taking place on Saturday, but the South Yorkshire Police were unhappy about the clash with Middlesbrough’s trip to Sheffield United and moved our fixture.
Nothing much to read into the two squads with the one for Hartlepool looking slightly stronger, but the Wednesday bound one (presumably captained by Kieron Dyer) also contains a number of first team players.
Squad to face Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough on August 1 (kick off 7.45pm): Shola Ameobi, Adam Bartlett, Lee Bowyer, Titus Bramble, Stephen Brennan, Carl Cort, Kieron Dyer, Robbie Elliott, Steve Harper, Aaron Hughes, Lomana LuaLua, Jamie McClen, Andy O'Brien, Bradley Orr, Steven Taylor, Hugo Viana, Calvin Zola-Makongo.
Squad to face Hartlepool United at Vcitoria Park on August 1 (kick off 7.15pm): Clarence Acuna, Craig Bellamy, Olivier Bernard, Tony Caig, Gary Caldwell, Steve Caldwell, Adam Collin, Michael Chopra, Shay Given, Andy Griffin, Jermaine Jenas, Brian Kerr, Alan O’Brien, Peter Ramage, Laurent Robert, Alan Shearer, Nolberto Solano, Gary Speed, Jonathan Woodgate