Sheffield Wednesday positional hint on key men - Xisco explains method

The Owls welcome Southampton to Hillsbrough tonight in what is the first match of the EFL season between teams who were two divisions apart last time out.

With the late arrival of Xisco, Wednesday’s preseason was an extended voyage of discovery, with tweaks on different systems and players tried out in different positions.

Josh Windass operated high and wide in the summer run-outs, Barry Bannan was pushed high up the pitch and Marvin Johnson played on the right, encouraged to cut in.

Beyond that, Akin Famewo had a run-out as a left-back and Tyreeq Bakinson played at centre-half.

What does seem clear is that Xisco’s Wednesday will kick off in attacking, front-foot style. Manager and players have made clear the need for patience in early weeks.

And it’s not necessarily the case that the likes of Johnson and Windass will line up as they have done over the last few weeks.

Xisco made clear he has used preseason to try players in different positions and sought to ask new things of them heading into the season proper.

Asked whether he had clear ideas of which positions he would field these players in, he said: “You know the Championship, the Championship is 46 games, you play a lot of games and you have cup games in the middle,” he said.

“We don’t want injuries, but the injuries will be there. Sometimes you need an understanding of if one player can play in two or three positions and in some moments they can help.

“This is what I have tried. I tried not only to prepare the team for one thing, I have tried to prepare them for different things and to see if we can find different solutions for when we have problems.

“If they play in one position or another position, they need to understand and be ready for different situations.

“I know more about them now, if they are ready and I have a better idea for if we need something from them if we have an emergency in a game. It’s important for me that players can play in two or three positions.”