Mammoth detail confirmed as Sheffield Wednesday get set for Stoke City test
Preparations for the coming season continue at Sheffield Wednesday as they take on Stoke City in Vienna on Saturday.
Sheffield Wednesday players face their most gruelling match practice of pre-season yet this weekend as they take on Championship side Stoke City in an extended set-up in Vienna on Saturday.
The Owls will make the trip to Austria on Friday after a light final session of their intensive training camp on the outskirts of Budapest. The squad has once again been subjected to repeat double sessions in the European heat as Henrik Pedersen and his coaching staff look to set a fitness standard in place that would make them the fittest side in League One ahead of a long campaign.
As has been the case in previous pre-season programmes, matches have been curated to ‘stage-up’ the volume of player contributions in friendly run-outs. The Stoke match will be a match of 70-minute halves, with players on both sides likely to play a full half each after Owls players stepped out for 45 minutes in their behind-closed-doors game with West Brom and an hour last weekend against Preston North End.
Wednesday boss Henrik Pedersen told The Star in Budapest: “I think West Brom was a tough but really, really good game for us to get the intensity in, to see defensively where do we have challenge, what is the next step we have to work with. We also saw offensively, and here everyone played 45 minutes.
“Now against Preston, everyone got 60 minutes. We saw a strong, strong, organised defensive team from us, and we also saw a lot of good moments on the ball. We also saw that we need much more organisation in both phases, but we are in the right direction.”
The likes of Ricardo Santos, Liam Cooper and Di’Shon Bernard are continuing to stage themselves back from injury and are not expected to play a full part in the run-out, though the former pair are expected to take part in the light training session on Friday. New signing Billy Mitchell has been undertaking some extra fitness work away from the main squad during their Hungarian training camp and it remains to be seen whether Jordi Liongola plays a full part having done some light work with the medical staff after Thursday’s relaxed training session.
Pedersen appeared excited at the prospect of building-up to the next stage of pre-season and a firm technical test against a side that may well include transferred Owls player of the year Svante Ingelsson.
“We have seen that we are in a fitness level that is more than acceptable,” Pedersen said. “It's in the right direction. And now when we play against Stoke, we play 140 minutes. All players will get 70 minutes, and it will be a big, big game because Stoke is a top team, so our defence will get a big, big challenge.
“We will also be challenged when we win the ball, because we are coming really quick when we lose the ball, but we will also be challenged just generally for our build-up, for our principle, for our rest defending, because we know the transition from Stoke is tough.
“So it's a good game to be tested in all phases of the game and to get a clear picture of where are we now tactically, where are we working from, who we want to be when we run on the pitch for the culture side, but of course also for the physical side.”