Tricks, time and Tequila: The little Sheffield Wednesday livewire Danny Röhl liked from day one

But as Wednesday trudged from the field in Danny Röhl's second match in the job, downtrodden by the weight of a start to the season that had them adrift at the bottom and hapless, the German took dejected-looking French teenager Djeidi Gassama to one side. A word, a smile, a hug. It was clear that this would be a relationship of nurture.

The journey had since has been marked, not least for Wednesday themselves, who picked themselves up from back-to-back defeats to grind out a deserved win at Preston North End on Friday evening, driving themselves back to within a couple of victories of the safety spots heading into January.

It had not necessarily been a night for Gassama's raw, untamed skillset to shine out. Starting in a 'Brat Pack' front three whose combined years came to less than retirement age, he offered a dribble or two, he won a couple of free-kicks and managed to claw a few metres of territory. But what else he offered, along with fellow frontline-dwelling youngsters Bailey Cadamarteri and Anthony Musaba, was a spirit of battle we perhaps didn't see so much of in his early outings in blue and white.

They were early outings that set doubts rife. Patience of course is always a given when it comes to the arrival of a teenager fresh into South Yorkshire from PSG, but there were quiet rumblings of his unsuitability to the job in hand. They are doubts Röhl acknowledges but scraps as we approach three months into his management of the club and of a youngster who has been sprinkled a careful number of minutes.

Asked about Gassama in conversation with The Star after the Preston win, a smile creeps over the German's face. "We played today with Musaba, Gassama and Bailey," he said. "This is great! These are our young boys and it is fantastic, this is what I like. It is not easy to make a rotation but they did well in this team. They were fantastic.

"I like him from the very first day. From the first training session I saw that he can give us special things. But it is also normal as a young player that you have ups and downs. He came in against QPR and he helped to turn the game to our side and then there are games you think 'Oh come on'. Today was a game which was a difficult one, but he was immediately fighting."

It's the acknowledgement and acceptance of Gassama the raw ball of energy that Röhl is only too happy to reveal, a sense that the road ahead is a long one for a player you could just as easily see one day swaggering into Europe's top leagues as you could see him slipping into the French regionals. But there's plenty there to work with and as far as the German is concerned, there is nothing that will tip the scales further towards the former than hard work and education.

He continued: "Sometimes I feel it is good to have him on my side (of the pitch) because then I can push him all the time. You can see the improvement in him in the days since we arrived and I heard about him, the questions on whether he can really play in the Championship, is he able to do this?

"You can see now he can, he can make things happen with his dribbling. He is the guy who can keep the ball. If he works hard against the ball and comes close in the spaces to support the full-backs then he will be a fantastic player."

For now, there will be flashes of excellence and periods of frustration. There'll be moments in the team and, you suspect, times he doesn't get much of a kick. From there terraces, there'll be songs of 'Tequila' in his honour. With Röhl's openness for patience, you rather think he's in good hands; the best spirits take a little time to mature, after all.