Trossard’s match-winning turn at Aston Villa highlights the vital importance of the super-sub

The Argentinian basketball player Manu Ginobili played 16 seasons in the NBA, was twice voted an All-Star and had his jersey number retired by the San Antonio Spurs. He was one of the three best players on four title-winning teams, won an Olympic gold medal and, in 2022, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Yet he was part of the starting line-up in just 31.5 per cent of the 1,275 NBA games he played in his illustrious career.

Mariano Rivera, the great New York Yankees pitcher, was a 13-time MLB All-Star. He won the World Series five times and was named World Series MVP in 1999. His Yankees jersey has been retired, too, and he was entered into the Baseball Hall of Fame at the first time of asking in 2019.

Rivera pitched in 1,115 games during his 18-year career; he started just 10.

The fact these two bona fide legends of their respective sports were rarely involved at the outset of matches was not considered a slight, though. Their ability to interject themselves into ongoing games, assess what was required and apply their unique skillsets to aid their teams in these situations was viewed as a huge positive. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich valued Ginobili’s ability to take command of his side’s second string and dominate against subbed-in opponents. Rivera is regarded as perhaps the greatest ‘closer’ of all time, a pitcher who would be brought on to put the sword to weary opponents.

And there was prestige in these roles, too. Ginobili was named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, the award given to the league’s most effective substitute, in 2008. And Rivera was a three-time Delivery Man of the Year, the gong recognising baseball’s best relief pitcher.

Such celebration of specialist substitutes is seldom seen in football.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is one of the foremost examples of a footballer who consistently shone in short minutes, with his stoppage-time winner in the 1999 Champions League final just one in a long list of game-changing interventions he made from the bench for Manchester United. Yet the Norwegian poacher was famously much fonder of his ‘Baby-Faced Assassin’ nickname than his ‘super-sub’ label.

Footballers, like any professional sportspeople, are hyper-competitive by nature. Theirs is a team sport and they will invariably profess a collegiate, ‘whatever the team needs…’ mentality. But they want not only to be part of a winning team; they want to be central to it. The super-sub tag is one of the games stickiest labels and confines its wearers to what is perceived to be a diminished role. It is also a universal truth throughout the sporting world that back-ups tend to earn less than starters – so there’s a financial factor at play, too.

Perhaps attitudes are shifting slightly. Recently, when asked about how Alejandro Garnacho can earn a starting berth after beginning the 2024-25 season off the bench, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag spoke of the importance of ‘finishers’.

“Show it [deserving a starting spot] every day on the training pitch and, of course, in every minute you can get,” he said. “That is not only about the starters, but also the finishers. So I was very pleased last week with the two players who came on, [Joshua] Zirkzee and Garnacho, making a difference.

“That is what we need throughout the whole season, as we know we do not win with just 11 players in games and in between games. You need more than 11 players to win the football games.”

Garnacho, at this stage of his career, is the ideal candidate to be a ‘finisher’ rather than a starter. The Argentinian teenager still possesses a tactical naivety that betrays his age and is yet to master the out-of-possession aspects of a winger’s remit. But with his pace, fearless directness and creativity in the attacking third, he can be devasting when unleashed into a stretched game to run and tired legs.

Solskjaer’s Old Trafford career was a similar tale. He lacked the nuanced link play and one-v-one ability demanded of the best United strikers of the era. But he was one of the most ruthless takers of scoring chances in the world and was such a studious observer from the bench that by the time he came on he’d already spotted the opposition’s weaknesses and plotted how to exploit them.

And this past weekend showed the importance of having a top 12th man. In Leandro Trossard, Arsenal can claim probably the best next-man-up of them all, and it could prove decisive in the title race.

The Gunners were second best for large portions of their trip to face Aston Villa , disrupted by the home side’s press and fortunate beneficiaries of Ollie Watkins’ uncharacteristically profligate finishing .

Enter Trossard. The Belgian was brought on in the 65th minute, replacing Gabriel Martinelli on the left flank. In the 67th minute, with his very first touch, he unerringly fired low into the bottom corner of Emiliano Martinez’s net to put Arsenal ahead. And 10 minutes later, the 29-year-old winger was the instigator of the move that eventually led to a Thomas Partey strike that secured a 2-0 win for last season’s Premier League runners-up, making a blistering run in behind the Villa backline.

Since signing from Brighton in January 2023, Trossard has bagged seven goals from the bench for Arsenal. He’s scored as a substitute against such high-calibre opposition as Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City. And since the start of last season, he has averaged a goal every 127.6 minutes – a remarkable strike rate for a wide player.

Yet, predictably, Trossard is discontented with his auxiliary role.

“When you don’t get picked, there are certain ways to react,” Arteta said after the Villa win. “Leo is upset, but he is upset and shows on the pitch how good he is – not upset and come in and react badly. That is a huge quality.

“Then, when you put him in the starting line-up, he does exactly the same thing. That is a big message and a big example for the rest of the team and myself.”

But the fact of the matter is, as Arsenal are presently constructed, the most effective deployment of Trossard is in exactly the kind of role from which he changed the game at Villa Park.

And that’s something that should be celebrated. In what is likely to be another title race of fine margins, Trossard’s supremacy as a substitute could be a key differentiator in Arsenal’s favour – more so, even, than a starter merely providing competence at their position (we’re looking at you, Martinelli).

It’s time to sing the praises of the super-subs. Commend the closers. Fawn over the finishers.

Twelfth men, take a bow.