Long days, brotherly love and training videos – Sheffield Wednesday’s family connection

Anybody who has worked closely with a family member on a daily basis knows that things can get a bit fraught at times, but the Owls boss says that his young sibling is key to the progress that he’s trying to bring on board at Hillsborough this season.

The pair have worked together on numerous occasions before prior to their arrival at S6, and Xisco says that his demands can be tough on his staff as he expects a lot from them on a daily basis. He and Miguel, he says, are working almost 11-hour days.

“For me he’s an important part of my staff,” he explained to The Star. “We arrive together at the training ground at 7.30am and we’ll be here until 6pm. We’re working every day for all the situations. Yes, he’s my brother, but sometimes when you spend a lot of time with your staff it’s like *gestures friction* this.

“It’s ok, but for example when we finished out last job we went a month without calling each other. It was like ‘I don’t need you near to me, go there!’. We spent a month on holiday like this.

“But right now it’s 24 hours… Work, work, work. Sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard for the staff because to make one five-minute video can take two or three hours to find the best things for the players.

“We analyse all the training, we try to show them their mistakes in training every day, or the good solutions that they had in training… It’s important after training that people are ready to show the players what they’re doing well, how they can improve. It can be hard for the staff.”

Wednesday make the trip to Cardiff City this weekend as they go in search of their first points in Xisco’s tenure, and speaking in his press conference on Saturday he seemed confident that a turnaround in fortunes wasn’t too far away.

Everyone of an Owls persuasion will be hoping that the Spaniard, and his brother, have something to smile about when they make their return to Middlewood Road early on Monday morning.