The German coach stepped in to take the Hillsborough hotseat in October 2023 and launched a remarkable survival tilt that was completed in an iconic last day win at Sunderland last May. This season has been more plain-sailing, with the side having bucked the trend of club budgets to peer in on the outskirts of the play-off places and remain well clear of any part in the relegation conversation despite a second-half downturn in results.

For the first time in five years Wednesday head into their final four matches of the season without any jeopardy in terms of either promotion or relegation, with stats operator Opta putting their chances of either eventuality at less than 0.01 per cent. Their next three matches come against sides with plenty to play for, with Wednesday set to step into a sold-out Stoke City on Friday hoping to end a run of five without a win and pull their momentum in the right direction.

Röhl spoke over the weekend to suggest that with a midtable placing secured, some players may not share his desire to claw their way to a highest-possible league finish. He suggested he understands how this can impact things on the pitch but, he said, is not something he has seen any sign of in their day-to-day activity at Middlewood Road.

The Owls boss told The Star: “I must say, when I look again this week, maybe you’d think training is maybe flat but today they (the players) are sharp and they like to play their football. What we should not do is make everything bad, even against Oxford in my point of view we played 70 minutes of a good football game. You saw a lot of good things. But it is not to win football games.

“It is the last percentage and this is sometimes what we miss. In front of goal, some duels. In this league and against these opponents, you cannot stay metres away from the opponent, you have to go into the duels. These are things I want to see. It is not magic. I saw a lot of good things, but good things were not enough.

“We have to be critical with ourselves. I am critical with me, with the players. But I see also what we did this season. I think this is part of the story.

“I prepare my team like usual,” the Owls boss continued. “I always prepare my team for how we win, we train on habits and things we have to improve. There is not one moment here that you feel they are off or doing nothing, no. Sometimes it is the opposite way, we do more. All these things you can believe. I am hard working in this moment, I am not on holiday and I am working again and again because I want to win games and prepare as best as possible.

“I know in these tight games when you are fighting the opponent, they are fighting for something and you play 70 good minutes. There comes a moment and then the resilience could maybe ask if you can fight for something. But to come to this point it is about us. We could have scored twice against Oxford, we would have won this game. But sometimes we drop back into old habits and this is what we have to refresh. We did that this week again and again.”

It has been suggested that a dour end to the season could take away from the feeling of a tremendous show of progress from Wednesday this season. It’s a school of thought Röhl has no desire to entertain.

“What I will not do at the moment is make a question about the last 18 months,” he said. “There is a reason why we are at this point, there is a reason why we achieved the goal to stay in the league very early – and maybe there are reasons why we are dropping in the last couple of weeks. If you look to the whole season, we played now 42 matchdays and now at the end it is two or three games that decided in which direction we are. It is crazy to see, this is not the big picture, but it is about three games. Maybe then we say ‘What if? What if?’”

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