Bonding activities and Berahino's welcome: Inside the international break with Sheffield Wednesday

Darren Moore will use the postponement of Saturday’s match against Sunderland to bring his squad closer together ahead of a gruelling League One promotion effort.
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The Owls’ Hillsborough clash against the Black Cats was called off after the away side had four players called up for international duty.

It means that after Tuesday evening’s breezy Papa John’s Trophy win over Newcastle United’s under-21 side Moore and his coaching staff effectively have 10 days opportunity to work with the players at their Middlewood Road training ground.

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Asked whether he saw the postponement of the Sunderland game as a good thing, Moore told The Star: “That’s how I’m looking at it.

Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore will get to work with his players for an extended period after their match with Sunderland was postponed.Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore will get to work with his players for an extended period after their match with Sunderland was postponed.
Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore will get to work with his players for an extended period after their match with Sunderland was postponed.

“It’s two weeks to work with the guys, people like Mide [Shodipo] will be back at it, Lewis Gibson will be back at it, Hutch, along with one or two others.

“Coming off the back of the Morecambe game as well, we can work on one or two principles in terms of building for that Plymouth game.”

Moore’s efforts to bond the side together were inhibited by coronavirus restrictions during preseason and while a great deal of hard work on the training ground is the central theme, The Star understands activities are being planned that are aimed at bringing the team closer together socially.

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Though groups players will regularly meet for lunch after training, Wednesday squad in its entirety last got together when they went for a team meal the day after their EFL Cup win over Huddersfield. Several new faces have arrived since then and there will be an effort to welcome these players into the fold.

New signing Saido Berahino completed his move to Wednesday while still in Belgium and will meet his teammates next week after a five-day period of quarantine. Moore has said he is confident the striker will arrive in good condition after he achieved a full preseason programme with his old club Zulte Waragem.

The likes of Florian Kamberi and Sylla Sow also had to endure periods of quarantine but are now up to speed, with Sow having scored on his debut in the Newcastle match-up.

Satisfied with a great deal of hard work in the transfer market that saw 14 players join the club, Owls Moore boss had said how much he was looking forward to the window closing so as to draw a line under this phase of his Wednesday rebuild.

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The hard work starts now, he suggested, and though Wednesday can still bring in free agents, it seems the current squad is what the club will be working with until January at the very earliest.

“We’ll take this opportunity to work and now that the window is closed and we’ve got the bodies in,” he said. “Now we’ll just work on that group cohesion, that understanding.

“We want to get them together and understanding one another more.

“We’ll give them Wednesday off and then we’ll work from Thursday onwards. We’ve got the rest of the week and all of next week before we travel down south for the Plymouth game.”