Sheffield Wednesday embarked on a journey of tactical exploration during the preseason, and with their Championship debut rapidly approaching, many have seen their change in strategy.
Sheffield Wednesday will approach things a little differently this season as they aim to continue on the progress gained last season, particularly in terms of pressing, transitioning through the game, and playing from the back, as some in the camp have made abundantly evident. They deliberately selected their summer friendly schedule to put them to the test against elite opponents who presented various obstacles. Danny Röhl and his teammates expressed their happiness with the progress made thus far.
As they go about putting their work into practice week in and week out, the nuances of it will become more apparent in the upcoming weeks. The untrained eye may wonder if Wednesday is trying to adopt the current trend of emphasising “inverted wing-backs” this season given the full-backs’ tendency to arrive in more central positions before the centre halves. Particularly noticeable are players like Max Lowe and Yan Valery, who frequently appear in midfield alongside backup players.
After the Owls’ final friendly against CD Leganes, Röhl spoke with The Star and explained that the players are being trained to occupy certain positions in order to make themselves more difficult to break down and to make opposing teams have to think a little bit harder about how they plan to get the ball starting on Wednesday.
“We worked a lot on positioning,” he said. “It is not about who is in that positioning, it is not important whether it is a number, six or a full-back or a winger, it is just important that the position is occupied. It is up to the players to recognise if one position is not occupied then the next one comes in. This is a result of the last five weeks and hopefully it will be difficult to press us this season, so much more.
“The opponent must think whether they must go with a lot of high numbers to press us, we have always the option to have James Beadle to play behind. If they choose not to press us then we can play in, if they close the centre then we can play around them, if they open up the space between the lines then we use the red zone. We want to give them a challenge, we know what we need to do.”
Plymouth Argyle will be the first side to come up against the new-look Wednesday approach on Sunday. Röhl knows the step-up in pressure starts now but has huge faith that the intensity of their summer programme will stand them in good stead.
“Now that the season is officially underway, there will be more pressure on match days, but we should be ready because we played Brighton, Salzburg, Bremen, and a first division Spanish team,” he added. Although I am pleased with the preseason, things must move on.
