Alex Miller: What a difference a year makes as Sheffield Wednesday enjoy cheese to last season’s chalk

Because with every respect to him, nobody could have pretended to have known very much about Tolaji Bola. On the other side of defence was Renedi Masampu, also a complete unknown. The squad was filled-in with kids from the academy that try as they might weren’t ready to be there.

“Are you sure that’s him?” one reporter asked another. Before the match Dennis Adeniran did some running drills with Wednesday coaches but with his signing not yet complete and a registration embargo yet to be officially lifted, we were politely asked not to report the fact.

Darren Moore puffed out his cheeks when asked how things were going. Heading into a League One season in which the club were under pressure to win the division, his squad was half-full at best and all a bit messy in appearance.

Whichever was you cut it, Wednesday’s 10-day pre-season trip to South Wales last season was a hot mess. In fact, until the club did great work in getting players through the door in a hurry in the final throes of the summer, the whole of pre-season was a hot mess. And there’s no doubt it contributed to their slow start to the season proper.

Fast forward to this week’s trip to Portugal and ducks appear to be lined neatly in a row. The weather is warm, the spirit in the camp is high and frankly the squad isn’t made up of children.

The squad is in fact made up of talented players, many of them of huge League One experience. Areas of weakness have been largely addressed – though there’s more to come on that front – and recruitment work has been done in plenty of time to get them involved in this training camp.

Considering the amount they had to do, that Moore has spoken about the bulk of his transfer plan being done in mid-July is remarkable – and it has to be said – is very ‘un-Wednesday’.

“Last year we went to Wales early, and we had 10 days, nearly two weeks down in Wales early on,” Moore said earlier this week.

“This time, we wanted to have a couple of weeks at Middlewood Road. We made a few signings so I wanted them to get used to and familiarise themselves with the environment.

“The idea was to come out to Portugal for the training camp with the weather, although I’m hearing it’s nice back home! It’s not too far to travel, the facilities are great, the time difference is exactly the same as back home, so it ticked a lot of boxes really.

“So far we’ve got through some good work and long may that continue for the rest of the week.”

This writer has been lucky enough to spend a few days out in Portugal breathing in the sights and sounds of their latest pre-season effort – much more colour to come on that front, by the way – and having spent a little time in Wales last year, the two experiences are worlds apart.

It all bodes well for the tide-turning Owls.