No backward step as Danny Röhl goes from Southampton prefect to Sheffield Wednesday house master

The German arrived at Southampton in December 2018 having left the bosom of a decade-long time rising through the ranks of the Red Bull programme, a project as upwardly mobile and Röhl himself. It was a brave switch that took him away from his family and to a new country at the age of just 29.

He was head-hunted by former Red Bull man Ralph Hasenhüttl and made an impact as the Saints ended a long winless run to beat Arsenal 3-2 in the 85th minute. Southampton survived relegation and within eight months he was at Bayern Munich. Röhl fell in love with the blood and guts of an English football fixture schedule and the theatre of its supporters. Without that experience, he admits there's a good chance Sheffield Wednesday would not be an opportunity he looked to as closely as he did before his appointment in October.

"It was for me maybe the most important stint in my career," he said two days out from his St Marys return. "After nine years at Leipzig it was great but there was a moment to decide what the next step was for me. It was not easy to leave Leipzig where we were successful, a nice place to live, my family is there. But I got the opportunity to be an assistant coach in the Premier League and I think at this time I found my love for English football. It was fantastic and it is a big reason I am back now in the UK. The football in England is special, the supporters are crazy and they love the game so much.

"When I left Southampton my goal was always to come back to the UK. You never know when, this is always about timing. But for me it was clear I wanted to come back to the UK, hopefully as a manager. I am here now as a manager of a fantastic club with a big challenge ahead. It was the trigger for me to want to come back to the UK."

Not a great number of Röhl's colleagues still work at Southampton, a club that has been through a number of reincarnations since his time there. Those who do he is looking forward to catching up with, though as has come to be expected of the ultra-competitive, preparation-obsessed German, there is no sense of a doe-eyed day out.

Neither will Röhl depart from the principles he has so quickly filtered into his Wednesday set-up against a side unbeaten in an age and with the benefit of several international and Premier League-experienced players. Daunting to those outside the camp the task may seem, but there's a bubbling confidence to the camp who are in their own right scaling the upper echelons of recent form tables. The season will not be defined on the result on the south coast, but Röhl is there to show his old pals what he's managed to do with his first throw at being the main man. In their own meticulously-planned way, the Owls will give it a go.

Röhl continued: "In the last three months I have shown we want to play our style of football, for sure. Sometimes we adapt a little bit to the opponent but it's clear what we want to do. I am not a coach who goes there to park the bus and sit waiting, we want to be active, we want to play our football for sure. It will be a tough challenge against a good team with so much quality. We have to be brave there, it is the reason we took points in the last weeks and this is important to believe in this. You never know what can happen.

"I know this from my time in Munich, teams can maybe be the underdog but it doesn't mean you can't be ready for the game. I have seen how much intensity there has been in the week and how much fire there has been in the sessions. They are very focussed, we are hungry and it is about being prepared with a clear match plan. We will go there, try everything and then in the end we will see whether it is enough for this game. We want to make a good game.

"I am looking forward to going back to Southampton. It was a great time there, all the people I would like to thank and now I come back with my team. I want to show what we can do and hopefully we can take something there."