Alex Miller: Long-term romance or a romp behind the kebab shop? Sheffield Wednesday fans are ready to love again

Heartbreak? Despair? Or something sustainable that stays the course?

For the first few dates you gaze longingly at what’s in front of you wondering if he or she is the real deal. Your mind wanders, you chatter mindlessly to friends, you doubt yourself – am I looking through rose-tinted glasses or is this the one I’ve been waiting for?

In football terms, pre-season delivers that feeling of adventure enjoyed in those first few dates. And where Sheffield Wednesday are concerned, things are going OK.

Look, it’s not been the firework display pre-season it could have been, but those are the relationships that often promise so much before you realise they’ve cheated on you on a Saturday night round the back of the kebab shop.

Wednesday haven’t scored in three of the four friendlies played so far and there have been more than a few comments that suggest the Owls are missing a little sprinkling of something special in the final third.

But it’s still early days in the transfer window and the overwhelming feeling is that things are ticking along nicely, with the new boys settling in and impressing and optimism growing off the field.

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That ‘x-factor’ addition could well arrive and besides, with the likes of Lee Gregory, Josh Windass and Michael Smith jostling for minutes, there are goals in the squad. Wednesday look in decent nick.

Wigan Athletic are next, the League One champions who have had an altogether slower dating experience so far this summer but appear in good fettle.

It will provide another stern final test in what has been a carefully designed schedule for Wednesday.

The bulk of the squad have achieved close to a 90-minute outing and will hope to do so before the curtain raiser. Injuries – touch wood – have been at a minimum.

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Spirits are high and things are well settled, with the club having done the bulk of their business early. There are senior additions and additions of promotion-winning experience, a box largely unticked in the squad that failed to put together a sustained charge at the automatic spots last season.

But the fact is that we don’t know.

We won’t know until the final transfer is completed or the first six matches are played or until the busy Christmas period is navigated or until May itself. But through football seasons, as in the dating world, the fun is in the trying. The heartbreak is in there, too.

As in all relationships, trust is key.

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And Wednesday supporters, scorned time and time again by the club and the squad and former managers and everyone else, are rightly wary of throwing themselves back into the arms of another once again.

There’ll be tiffs on days out at Morecambe or at Plymouth no doubt. But maybe, just maybe, they’re right to look at this season a little differently.

For now, let’s not contemplate the possibility of deceitful romps behind kebab shops. Because heading into the season opener at home to Portsmouth next weekend, Wednesday fans are feeling amorous.

They’re back, and they’re ready to love again.