Liverpool, trailing Newcastle 1-0 at the break, had just produced their worst first-half display of the season. Their fans, eager for them to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League by winning Wednesday’s match at St James’ Park, were growing anxious, but football’s first dedicated substitutes coach, having referred to his statistics, recommended patience rather than wholesale changes.
“Arne Slot has an incredible second-half record and a really effective subs record when in losing positions,” says Sammy Lander, who pioneered the substitutes coach role at AFC Wimbledon in 2021-22.
For the past year, Lander has been the head of research and innovation at Loudoun United, a Virginia-based club in the United States’ second-tier USL Championship, but he has also been tracking the Premier League’s substitution statistics.
Armed with those stats, he has visited governing bodies and clubs around the world to make the case for more dedicated substitutes coach. One recent meeting was with a Premier League team, where his presentation pointed out that the majority of their losses had been by a one-goal margin and that their approach to substitutions had failed to deliver goal contributions.
“We paint so many pictures as coaches for the starting XI so that there are no surprises in minute one,” Lander says. “But with subs, we don’t tell them what the game will look like at the 70th minute. They are sent on and have to figure it out themselves, and it takes them six or seven minutes to figure it out, but some of them struggle with that.
“The role of a substitute in modern football is still so overlooked. It’s crazily undervalued, given you get to change five players — half your outfield team. Tactically, technically, socially, psychologically, physically, you can influence so much.”
Lander wants teams to work much more closely with their substitutes, preparing them for each opposing side and situation. He would also design a playbook of potential substitutions before every fixture, with eight to 10 permutations depending on the game state.
Watching Newcastle-Liverpool live with him this week, the home side are deservedly ahead at half-time and have disrupted Slot’s team more than most since he arrived to succeed Jurgen Klopp four months ago. The temptation is to think substitutions are the only way to alter the game’s momentum.
“I think Slot is one of the best tactical problem-solvers in the league but this will be a really interesting second half as Newcastle’s winning subs (subs made when in a winning position) have closed out five of six games and Liverpool’s losing subs (subs made when in a losing position) have been good,” Lander says at half-time.
“They have made 10 subs in a losing game-state this season and all bar two individual subs have gone on to win their part of the game (if the score had been reset to 0-0 when they came on, they would have won).”
Losing to Newcastle at half-time on Wednesday, Slot had to decide how to use his bench (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
During the break, UK broadcaster Amazon shows both sets of substitutes meandering around the pitch, playing unopposed diagonal passes to each other — which is the exact opposite of how Lander believes clubs should be utilising that interval midway through a match.
“It should be a 15-minute full training session, to coach into the lads what we want to see in the second half,” he says.
“Liverpool haven’t really dealt with Newcastle’s press, so I’d be speaking with the coaches about what they want and would then set a drill up to ensure they have had enough repetition for the technical maintenance to be ready to deliver straight away.
“Newcastle are well coached but they tend to be very consistent in their defensive shape and the triggers to press. The area they (Liverpool) could hurt Newcastle is if they can split the midfield, so with Dominik Szoboszlai, I would be working on getting out of the shadow of the midfielder and with Trent (Alexander-Arnold; both these players began on the bench then came on midway through the second half) it would be about playing those passes through the lines.
“A lot of the shots have been from the edge of the box, too. They’re good at congesting the middle of the pitch, so can we practise long shots from those zones or work on combinations around that area? With a whole pitch and seven players, you can do a lot in that time (during the interval).”
Ahead of the trip to Newcastle, Liverpool had already flipped half-time deficits against Brighton and Southampton, as well as rescuing a draw with Arsenal. In their 13 previous Premier League second halves this season, they had won eight, drawn four and lost one.
At St James’ Park, with no substitutions made at the break, there is a change in the flow of the game shortly after half-time as Curtis Jones makes it 1-1 in the 50th minute.
“This is what I mean about Slot being tactically unbelievable,” says Lander. “His problem-solving is so good, he doesn’t necessarily rely only on subs to change games. (Ryan) Gravenberch was the single pivot in midfield but (Alexis) Mac Allister dropped to make a two and had all the time to pick out the pass that started the goal.
“I think it suits Liverpool that Newcastle haven’t made subs. Newcastle’s press looks to have dropped and it has become quite transitional, so (bringing on) Joe Willock or Sean Longstaff could be a good option to raise the intensity in the middle, or Harvey Barnes out wide to energise St James’ again.”
Newcastle’s Eddie Howe resisted turning to his bench too early (Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images)
Just as Lander references the momentum shift and Liverpool’s territorial dominance, Anthony Gordon scores on the counter to re-establish Newcastle’s lead.
The camera pans to Alexander-Arnold, Szoboszlai and Luis Diaz putting their jerseys and shin pads on. It is a sight that causes Lander sleepless nights, given he prides himself on having every sub ready to enter the pitch within 30 seconds of being called upon, but the possibility of a triple substitution Slot sees him dive into his data.
Double substitutions against Brighton and Southampton yielded two Liverpool goals within six minutes and another within three minutes, but against Arsenal, the Dutch manager opted for a triple change in the 62nd minute.
When in losing positions previously this Premier League season, teams had opted for a triple substitution 27 times. Interestingly, making one sub saw the result improve 26 per cent of the time, while a double change saw it improve 25 per cent of the time, but three new faces improved it by 30 per cent.
“There is not a set rule on it, but there are some tragic stats on making four at one time,” says Lander. “The Premier League moving from three to five subs in 2022 made teams less cautious of using a triple sub.
“If you are Newcastle, and you look across to see those three players coming on, it is almost an intimidation tactic as this is them (Liverpool) going back to arguably their strongest XI. Trent inverting to create a double pivot and beat the press, Szoboszlai into midfield to receive on the half turn, and Diaz wide for more directness is tactically a very nice change. I think the game swings now and Liverpool could be in control for the next 10 minutes.”
Within a minute, two of the substitutes combine to get Liverpool level again. Alexander-Arnold wins the ball up high, Szoboszlai takes over and returns possession to the England right-back in space out wide. His second attempt at a cross tees up Mohamed Salah to steer a shot past Nick Pope.
Substitute Alexander-Arnold celebrated Liverpool’s second goal with Curtis Jones (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Liverpool continue to pile on the pressure and, in the 83rd minute, Szoboszlai, occupying the space behind the Newcastle midfield, dummies the ball for it to run through to Alexander-Arnold, whose cutback sets up Salah again.
With Liverpool now 3-2 up, Lander consults his table of permutations once more. He finds that when holding a lead, making two changes at a time sees teams either maintain or extend their lead 77 per cent of the time.
“(Wataru) Endo is always the guy to bring on in the 87th or 88th minute. He is a good ‘closer’,” says Lander. Another term for such players is ‘finishers’, which is the name of Lander’s upcoming book and also a moniker then England rugby union head coach Eddie Jones popularised in an attempt to bestow responsibility on the role of a substitute.
“He did brilliant work with it but it is starting to have the same stigma as sub,” says Lander. “We create different types, like closers, impacters, energisers, exciters. It’s psychological names attached to tactical roles.
“There is often an unhappiness at not being picked (to start a game), so they switch off. It is about keeping them engaged with the game, so I always say to watch the game like you listen to a song. You can just bop along but if you listen intently to the lyrics, you understand it in a completely different manner. Don’t let the game pass you by, focus on how the opposition are pressing, building out, transitions.”
He adds: “I hate it when a manager slaps their back and says, ‘Go and win us the game’, because a lot of players will require a bit more direction — give players a cue card with where the balls are coming from and where the shooting zones are.”
As the game looks to be dying out, Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe rolls the dice and makes a triple change of his own: Willock, Longstaff and Callum Wilson on for Joelinton, Gordon and Sandro Tonali in the 87th minute.
Wilson and Willock were two of Howe’s late subs as he tried to salvage a point (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
“I’m not sure about a triple sub at that time,” says Lander. “If you are winning, those subs take 40 seconds off the clock, but it makes it tough to impact the game. If you think about it, the players go in 10 minutes before kick-off and, apart from those random two touches passes at half-time, that is close to a full 90 minutes without any specific match-related movements.”
Lander’s point is illustrated when Liverpool substitute Diaz loses possession. “There is data that shows subs tend to lose their first duel,” he says.
“When Barnes came on (in the 74th minute), I’d be showing a cue card to Robertson and Diaz with three things: He’s both-footed, prefers dribbling in a certain direction and draws fouls well, just for our own players to mentally adjust from Jacob Murphy to Barnes.”
In the 90th minute, Diaz fouls Barnes. From the resulting free kick, Alexander-Arnold loses track of Fabian Schar at the back post, and he is able to squeeze the ball home from a tight angle as goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher misjudges the flight of the ball. It means both triple substitutions, one more directly than the other, shifted the scoreline in their team’s favour.
“It worked today for two teams, but it might not work the next four weeks and then what,” says Lander. “At Wimbledon, we built up so much knowledge and data around it that we had a clear process that created effective substitutions.
“That’s why subs are so inconsistent most of the time. A deliberate process will create an effective substitute.”
(Top photo: Newcastle’s triple sub against Liverpool; Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
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