What are leaders? And what does effective leadership look like in the modern game? What do we immediately conjure up images of when we’re asked to describe leadership in football and what does leading now mean in the football sense of the word?
Football history’s iconic leaders tend to follow familiar form. Butcher and his blood strewn bandages, Souness, Robson, Adams and the like were all tub-thumping individuals, able to elevate not only their own game but also that of their supporting cast at the most important of times
Viera, Keane, Puyol, Cannavaro and Gerrard are all more recent and immensely successful, leaders; immediately recognizable, not only their influential qualities, but the way in which they frequently forged aggression and skill to allow for an environment of winning.
Beyond those figureheads and stepping into more recent football times, resistance occurs as you try to identify standout leadership in the traditional football sense of the way we think about the word. The Leadership of then has been malleablized into the leadership of now. The leadership of Roy Keane cannot be spoken about in the same notion as the leadership of Messi. One used vocal organization and aggression to lead and set standards, the other silently sets the standard and leads with goals. Yet there still remains a strong belief that leadership on a football pitch can only manifest itself in the form of thumping tackles and a high headed duel win percentage.
Romaine Sawyers was officially given the captains armband back in November 18, after the idea to rotate leaders was not having the desired effect on the pitch.
Given how disparate the discussions over the years have been amongst the Brentford fanbase with regards to Sawyers, to hear polar opposite opinion when his worth is being questioned is not at all surprising.
The idea to rotate captains, was in principle, a fine one.
Why not try to share around the responsibility of leadership? Limiting a side to one stand out leader seems counter intuitive when you have the opportunity to create more.
The poor results Brentford experienced during the shared captaincy period could have happened had there been a fixed captain. An unlucky spell in front of goal or a goalkeeper making simple saves look difficult would have far stronger links to a dip in average points being picked up during a period of games than a switching of captains.
The uproar towards a situation that had a fair amount of logic to it was largely misplaced, as thinking in a similar way to rival organisations is not how you find edges, it just results in having similar problems.
Instead, there shouldn’t have been mass surprise at a move like this, it’s another idea referenced straight from the book of not thinking like everyone else. Football is renowned for doing far too many things because “that’s the way they’ve always been done”, which is the main reason football harbours a large collection of the worst businesses around.
Sawyers being given the permanent captain role may have on the face of it, seemed like a peculiar choice.
How can you possibly have a captain that is spoken about in terms such as these…
“He’s got no bottle or character” or “He needs to want it more” are lines gushed out with routine frequency.
“He’s so lazy” or “He doesn’t tackle”. “He doesn’t sprint or “He doesn’t go up for headers”. “He can’t tackle” Or a real frequent anti-Sawyers favourite, “He just passes sideways”
Following any game and whatever the result, there will be those that sprint to social media channels and message boards to argue the case of ‘football against Romaine Sawyers’.
Why must unquantifiable words like grit, desire, heart and fight be the only ways to speak about his leadership and captaincy?
Measuring Sawyers with words like these miss out on so many of his qualities. They miss the mark on how he’s thriving in a game that has moved so fast down the route of technical excellence, speed and tactical discipline.
Is there something deeper at play with regards to the judgement of Sawyers? Something a little more sinister in nature where racial biases double down on a black player with a languid running style, and a gait consisting of an effortless stride that doesn’t ever appear to the naked eye to break into anything more than a jog? Possibly.
Sawyers, more than anyone understands his limitations when it comes to something like tackling.
It’s not his forte, but he’s working on it and is visibly improving the defensive side of his game. He’s spoken openly about being coached to develop this area but the reality is his defensive game is about the reading of patterns, interceptions, blocking passing lanes and the clever use of his body.
The negativity directed towards such a pivotal player may be valid in infrequent, fleeting moments but that is in itself pushing it.
Since the departure of Ryan Woods as the pivot at the base of Brentford’s midfield, Sawyers has had to evolve.
The development has been fascinating, changing into almost an edge of each box-to-box midfielder.
With Woods moving on to Stoke City, it was soon clear that he couldn’t be directly replaced by any of the players at the club. There had to be an evolution to the side to negate his loss.
An experiment to give McEachran the opportunity to succeed Woods became painful to watch, so instead Frank made probably the most drastic change to the side since the return to the second tier.
The formation change to 343 has been the key moment and with it the change to Sawyers.
There’s been an obvious shift in his positioning, from an advanced attacking midfielder to a central midfielder, greatly exaggerated by the change in formation from 433 to 343.
Romaine Sawyers heat maps from 17–18 (with Ryan Woods) and 18–19 (Without Woods) are revealing.
Romaine Sawyers Heat Map 17/18
Romaine Sawyers Heat Map 18/19
The adjustment has many team benefits but does appear to put more pressure on the central midfield pairing from an athletic perspective, with the aim of making sure nothing is lost from an attacking or pressing sense by keeping the attacking trident intact.
Without going into too much detail, the 3 at the back system does relive the central midfielders of having to drop incredibly deep into their own half (between wide split centre backs) to pick up the ball. This is now the role of the central centre back, Julian Jeanvier. Sawyers can occupy a position central in the middle third, or slightly to the left or right knowing he will receive the ball closer to the more offensive minded players.
Alongside Mokotjo, Sawyers, with his South African counterpart are both extremely effective in the attacking transition phase of the game, working hard to get the ball forward as quickly as possible. If there is no route forward, Sawyers when receiving a pass is equally effective at not allowing the ball slow down, as he’ll frequently turn away from pressure to allow a pass to run across his body, then taking a touch and going short if there are no valid progressive options.
Being pushed by Thomas Frank to lead this side — to take charge of more situations, not just on, but also off the pitch, the Brentford Head Coach has taken Romaine away from the №10 role, and in doing so has unlocked his passing qualities so that they’re instrumental to everything Brentford do.
The dark red area in the centre circle of Sawyer’s 18/19 heat map tells the story of this shift. He’s now more prominent in the most central point of the field but he’s actually completing more actions over a greater average area than the season prior.
Matt Grimes of Swansea and Oliver Norwood of Sheffield United are the only two midfielders to have attempted more passes that Sawyers during Championship season 18/19.
Both analysts and fans of those clubs will tell you that they are Swansea’s and Sheffield United’s most important players with regards to actualising their coaches playing styles on the pitch, both in how they start possessions in their own half and create chances in the final third.
Frank’s move to make Sawyers more integral to the main passing system has been a shrewd one, because in doing so, he has arguably created the best passing central midfielder in the division.
Completing less passes that Grimes and Norwood, to understand how we can come to the kind of assessment that Sawyers may be the best at what he does, we need to look at the type of passes he is attempting.
The brilliant @SwansAnalytics alongside @BladesAnalytics have built an expected passing model, with the aim of trying to value passes by their levels of difficulty. The model produces a “Pass Score” for players, based on their contribution to creating goal scoring chances.
The ‘PassScore’ model aims to score passes based on their contribution to creating goalscoring chances. Goal assists stats can be limited because they can sometimes be simple passes and they also require the goal to be scored. Expected assists aims to give extra credit where goals aren’t scored but they too can be limited because passes into dangerous areas don’t always result in a shot immediately after it. Deep completions is probably the nearest stat that can be compared to “Pass Score” as these show you the number of passes completed within the last 18 yards of the pitch. The only limitation here though is that a lot of these passes can be played in wide areas with a very low expected goal value.
Further reading on pass score is available from Kevin Elphick here.
Looking at central midfielders that have completed 200 or more passes, Romaine Sawyers leads the way in the top right hand quadrant, completing the most lucrative passes.
The players scoring similarly to Sawyers, include Jack Grealish, Joe Allen, Barry Bannan, Mateusz Klich and John Fleck. A collection of players that are known for their creative and offensive qualities, making these rankings match what we assume with our eyes.
In the strive to find quantifiable evidence of good performance beyond goals, assists and pass completion numbers, metrics like expected assists and pass score are going to help credit or award players frequently involved in the good play that leads to chance creation.
When we think about the leaders of today’s game, they’re now the ones able to confidently carry out the majority of the metronomic passes that are pivotal to the makeup of the complex webs we see the very best coaches strive to employ.
It’s the organizers out of possession, those that coordinate and relay messages when the side is struggling to regain their shape. The efficient players, the ones the coaches rely on the most that make consistency over a season look effortless.
Or is it the ones able to continuously demand themselves the ball, progressing their team forward no matter the score or game state.
However you chose to measure it, and in trying to evaluate the leadership and the game he now plays, I think it has become clear that how we think about leadership and Sawyers himself, should be redefined.