Danny Rohl says Sheffield Wednesday fans seeing signs of progress as team looks to make midweek draw a turning point

A dramatically-snatched draw against Leicester City on Wednesday was an important signal to the players that the work they are putting in – especially on their fitness – is ready to start paying out. Now they must follow it up at home to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. Faith only gets you so far.

It is growing at Hillsborough, though, after coming from behind to take a point for the first time since Exeter City in April (they did equalise with Stockport County in August's League Cup first-round tie).

"If it's a turning point I don't know but it was the first time we came back into a game so it's an important signal to the team to show we can do this," says Rohl. "It's then about belief.

"We spoke after some defeats about how the belief was after conceding goals.

"On Wednesday the belief lasted until the end, we scored and then also protected the goal – the big save (from Cameron Dawson) was important and I think this created energy and great belief and we took a point."

The players are not the only people Rohl needs to believe.

Home form was the bedrock last season and all four of the German's points to date have come there. He talks often about the crowd needing to provide the energy for his team to draw from.

So it is important they have been able to take encouragement from somewhere other than simply results, which have yielded just four points from 21 under Rohl.

"They have a good feeling of how the improvement is in the last weeks," he comments.

"On Wednesday they saw a team that is competitive against a big team. We invest, this is always the basic – we have to invest in runs, in sprints, in willingness and mentality. These are the first things we have to do as a team and for sure we have tactical things we have to prepare.

"This is my job, to prepare my team as best I can, then I think we will get a thank you from our fans."

The supporters have already been kind and as someone brought up around the fan-friendly Bundesliga, Rohl understands their importance.

"I will always say thank you to our fans because they support us very well since I arrived," he says. "We have a good energy (in the stadium) and I will always give them something back from my side. It's just respectful for our fans, I like the patience they have with us.

"It's good to see how we can build up relationships with each other because we need the support from them and they can help us on our way around the pitch.

"It's important to look at their faces and there's a smile. They see a team who fight for 90 minutes for the result. I think this is what they expect from us, we have to do this."

Not that all the energy comes from others. Hard work at Middlewood Road – particularly during November's international break – is paying off too, as Wednesday's late equaliser showed.

"We are more and more fit to be able to play my style of football, to have the intensity," declares Rohl. "It's also important we have a squad and our subs are immediately in the game (after coming on).

"This is important. When you invest so much in the game you need everybody.

"It (November) was a good time for what I called the small pre-season and I think we worked hard but it's only seven weeks since I came here, it's not the longest time but the improvement, the steps forward, are massive.

"If you look to the data since I've arrived, before it was nearly 900m sprinted, now we average 2,000m and more.

"When you look back to Wednesday you saw a team who scored in added time and this is a good signal.

"It's also important we don't just have 30 minutes then dropping down, now it's about 60, 70, 90 minutes and we have to do this in this league because sometimes at the end you have the crunch time and this is where you can earn something, we have to do this. I see a big step forward.

"We have a fantastic medical department here, this is very helpful. Normally when you change the style of football after six or seven weeks it could be that you have more and more injuries but at the moment we are really well, we have a good load, a good performance load, we've balanced it very well."

And then comes the mental benefits of training, with players coming to better understand what is being asked of them.

"If you give them different challenges and new challenges every single day and help them with video, they learn, they understand and they recognise where the space is for the opponent, where the space is open (for them), what they have to do in the pressing and create some habits,” argues Rohl.

"Then they are not thinking about this because they understand what I want in the game more and more."

It feels like foundations are being laid but with a 12-point gap to Championship safety, the Owls must start building on them as soon as possible.