Sheffield Wednesday’s pre-season training camp in Hungary continued in sweltering heat on Tuesday morning. Alex Miller was there.

There’s a rustle of crickets and a wobble to the long-distance as Pete Shuttleworth bellows his instructions late on in Sheffield Wednesday’s latest round of summer preparation.

The squad is split into two teams and the focus is on moving the ball fast through transition. We know that because Henrik Pedersen had kindly taken a moment to explain that to the three reporters present in the moments before his coaches embarked on a session loaded in intensity and heavy detail. Such is a reminder of the intricacies and finites of modern football performance, there’s a point midway through his explanation that he may as well have been speaking in his native Danish.

There’s a passion to Pedersen you don’t see in every football coach. To illustrate his desire for players to collect the ball at speed, ahead of their opposite man, on the right side of the defender and with the ability to turn into attack, he grabs a staff member and pulls them into position. Get him on the subject of football and he’ll talk excitedly and in great fervor.

It’s a style that transfers to his coaching team and across to his players. The session is constantly moving, always alive. The moment one drill is slowed by the dryness of the grass at the MLSZ Technical Centre, it’s cut dead and things move on. Each drill is designed to be intense and full of bite and there’s very little standing still. It’s so warm you rather suspect the players would appreciate a repeat of the invasion by a rebel sprinkler that interrupted the coaches’ opening talk to some hilarity.

Place these scenes alongside those of last season and it’s a different proposition. There’s a virality to Wednesday this season, both on the training field and off it, with hopelessness turned to hope. Players bounce off one another, trading verbal blows in jest. When one team scores in a drill towards the end of the session that takes in the whole squad, the roar is genuine.

Pedersen wants this side to be stronger, fitter and faster than anything else in the division. Where other squads may be better set up for shorter sprint football, he wants this Wednesday to be robust and bustling over 90 minutes time and time and time again. Players have mentioned how impressed they are with the mutual condition of the squad.

The whole event is played out to the background flitter of a drone filming overhead and inside one hour of the session’s close, Pedersen and his coaching staff will receive data analytics on the physical performance of each of his players; in lists separated into positions and profiles. Competition appears to be part of the motivation and there is analysis on each of the sessions.

Care is clearly being taken on who does what and when. New signing Billy Mitchell, through the door later than everyone else but clearly in decent nick, completes some session work away from the bulk of the squad with head of sports science Rob Lee as he builds up his sharpness. Away from the session altogether, those nursing knocks and niggles continue their way back; Di’Shon Bernard, Liam Cooper and Ricardo Santos enjoying some head tennis and other drills. They seem to be moving nicely forward and in good spirits.

In the central session that demand for intensity and good practice is never let up on and Pedersen squeals from time to time, pushing and pushing as the legs grow a little heavier and the sweat glistens to a man. Harry Gray is reminded of his defensive duties, Max Lowe is congratulated on an intricate forward pass. Shuttleworth reminds his squad that 90 goals is the target as they tire on a transition passage. Keep working, keep working, keep working.

There’s a boyishness to some of it, too, an occasional reminder that football is fun and that, many years ago, we all did it because we loved it. When the session ends the lure of loose footballs proves too much for a handful and Charlie McNeill rattles one into the netting at pace. In a moment of pause, Gray takes it upon himself to engage in several sprints. Some footballers just love footballing.

A post-session de-brief from Pedersen innocently once again reminds us that in the ever-intensifying grit-and-gristle detail of football, we as football muggles are ill-educated. Where it all goes? Nobody knows as yet. There’s a desire for more grit, a desire for a slick and savvy playing style and a desire to build something at Sheffield Wednesday.