Sheffield Wednesday working on issue Barry Bannan has admitted needs attention

The club are in the midst of what feels to be a monumentally important international break and serves up the last opportunity of such an uninterrupted training opportunity until mid-March.

Wednesday have experienced a voyage of discover under new manager Röhl, with a new playing style and new instructions arriving with fierce new intensities. The German coach revealed to reporters last week that in terms of 'metres sprinted', his players are operating at an increase of nearly 100% in some instances since his arrival to the club.

It's an uptick in intensity that will no doubt take its toll on player's bodies, with Röhl making clear ahead of the international break that while the fortnight will be treated as a 'mini pre-season' in terms of physical output, efforts will be made to closely monitor fatigue and player condition so as to guard against the risk of injury.

Club captain Barry Bannan has acknowledged that some players have naturally struggled with the jump in tempo both at Middlewood Road and in match scenarios, admitting some have become tired when approaching the latter stages of matches in recent weeks.

It is now that Röhl and his coaching staff will look to front-load fitness work to guard the squad against fatigue both now and heading into the busy Christmas schedule, with 10 matches laying in wait across just 37 days.

"During the international break we will train stronger on the physical side of it," the Owls manager told swfc.co.uk. "It will be a little bit like a pre-season for one week to train hard and improve our fundamentals to be ready for December, with a lot of matches and not so much training.

"We find good solutions between training hard and recovery but when we have recovery, it's more about work on the mind, with videos, and maybe some soft training sessions on the pitch.

“We learn from every match and I am convinced if we play at 100% then we can do it, it’s a long way, there are many games to go but we need 100%, anything less and it’s not possible.

“The good thing about the international break is you can recover the players and come back with more of them in good shape, the intensity from the load can make them stronger as we go forward.”