Why the super sub is one of football’s most valuable roles (and why nobody wants to be one)

Ask any forward tagged with the ‘super sub’ label if they take pride in it, and you’ll get the same response.

“I hate it,” says Adam Le Fondre, who scored eight of his 12 Premier League goals after starting as a substitute. “I have always thought I am good enough to impact the game from the start.”

Some see it as football’s most backhanded compliment. For strikers, the select few that did not get pushed back to midfield or defence in youth football, it’s even more of a kick in the teeth. They have gone through their footballing lives as the leading player, only to become known for their contribution from the bench.

But the truth is that super subs are almost always a pivotal part of wider club success.

“Having four good strikers is a fantastic position to be in,” former Premier League manager Harry Redknapp tells The Athletic. “When you’ve got someone on the bench, you can look around and think, ‘Yeah, he can get me a goal’. When you’re sitting there with nothing on the bench and no goalscorers, it’s a very difficult situation.”

At Tottenham Hotspur, arguably the most successful period of his 34-year tenure in football management, Redknapp developed a reputation for stockpiling and rotating top-class strikers. During his spell in north London, Redknapp had Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Darren Bent, and Robbie Keane, all of whom have scored over 100 Premier League goals, as well as Roman Pavlyuchenko.

“I was lucky that I knew the strikers I had well, and they were great guys and professionals,” says Redknapp. “I’d worked with Crouch previously and known Jermain since he was 14. Strikers are desperate to get on the pitch. They’re bursting to score a goal. The lads I had were not sitting there sulking. They want to get on the pitch to prove they should be playing in the first place — almost to stick two fingers up to you for not starting them. That’s what you want.”

Redknapp valued impact substitutes throughout his managerial career (David Cannon/Getty Images)

As if to prove the point, Defoe, Crouch and Pavlyuchenko are three of seven players to have scored a record five winning goals as a substitutes in the Premier League. Of Defoe’s 162 Premier League goals, 24 came from the bench, another competition record. During Redknapp’s tenure, his strikers fired Spurs to the Champions League alongside Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, the first time they had reached Europe’s premier club tournament since 1962.

This season, Jhon Duran has emerged as the Premier League’s standout super sub. The Colombian forward has scored six goals in nine games in all competitions for Aston Villa this season, with his second-half goal from distance in Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League among the best of a spectacular collection.

His goalscoring return would be outstanding for the 20-year-old if he were Unai Emery’s main man in attack, but he has spent just 28 per cent of the available minutes in the Premier League on the pitch and has scored five of the six after beginning the game on the bench.

Duran has only started three times in the Premier League for Villa since moving from Chicago Fire in MLS in 2023 and is not yet seen as a 90-minute player by the Birmingham club. He is direct, confident to take risks, eager to use his powerful shot from distance, and quick enough to exploit the space left when the game opens up in the second half.

Replacing Ollie Watkins, a ferocious presser who sticks to the game plan and tires out defences, the conditions are perfect for “captain chaos” to profit from the England striker’s hard work.

“(For substitutes), a lot of the time it’s about trying to get them to understand their role within that team,” says Sammy Lander, a dedicated substitution coach and consultant who has worked with various club and national teams, including the USMNT. “Aston Villa are a really good example of that. You can easily identify squad roles within their team.

“I work with clubs where we recognise specific quiet periods for existing starters, and that’s when we target appropriate substitutes. Being deliberate with subs is important. Emery is not just turning around to look at a player, sticking him on in attack and hoping for the best. There are processes.

“For a lot of clubs, it’s still an overlooked area of the game where you’ve got an opportunity to bring in new tactics, players and solutions. When I started my role, I did a big questionnaire with managers and staff and found a recurring answer: that substitutes were often done with a gut instinct. I’d be very surprised if Villa are operating on that level. It appears they have much more of a process with Duran, which is why they’re being so successful.”

Duran had another successful intervention against Bayern in midweek (Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Emery backed up that thinking in his post-Bayern press conference. Before the game he spoke to his assistants and players about Duran’s ability to shoot from long range being a potentially effective tactic to exploit Manuel Neuer’s positioning, as the German ‘keeper often comes out far from his line. He also linked it to a goal he scored against Hibernian in the qualifying rounds for last season’s Europa Conference League, where Pau Torres played a similar pass to his assist for Duran against Bayern.

While no forward is ever completely content with limited contributions from the bench, coming on to benefit from tired legs can often be a route to goals. Le Fondre, who made his name as a prolific striker in the EFL, got his Premier League break in 2012-13 with Reading and scored 12 goals in his only season in the top flight. Of that number, eight were scored from the bench, the joint-fifth highest proportion of substitute goals in Premier League history.

Like Duran, he benefited from the hard work of another forward occupying the central defenders before he often came on and made an impact from the bench. In his case, it was the 6ft 2in (188cm) Russian striker Pavel Pogrebnyak.

“When I’m on the bench, I’ll be watching defenders and assessing their tendencies,” says Le Fondre, 37, who now plays for FC United of Manchester in the seventh tier of English football. “If someone’s not having a great game, I’ll know that’ll be the defender I’ll pick on. I’ll watch for spaces to see if I can exploit them when I get on.

“Naturally, if I was coming on, we were either chasing a game or trying to find a winner. With that mindset, the team changes the way it plays. We’re going to take more risks and put the ball into dangerous areas much more, so I’m obviously going to gain off the back of that. Playing on the front foot and being a little more assertive will always help.”

Le Fondre after scoring the second of two late substitute goals against Chelsea in 2013 (Scott Heavey/Getty Images)

A positive team culture is an essential component in ensuring ‘super subs’ do not become frustrated with their diminished role. Manchester United’s treble-winning squad of 1998-99 had Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Teddy Sheringham, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in attack, four international strikers who could have easily found moves elsewhere to become starters. But Alex Ferguson created an environment at Old Trafford where competition was strong, driving each other on.

“The problem is not when you have too many, it’s when you don’t have enough of them,” says Redknapp. ”The competition fires the players up — the best motivation is when you know ‘If I don’t do something soon, the manager will bring me off’.

“Watkins is playing very well, and he’s a top player, but he must be thinking, ‘Hang on. Every time the other fella comes on, he keeps scoring a goal. How much longer will he keep starting me and not bringing him into the starting line-up?’. It pushes whoever’s got possession of that shirt. They know they’re under severe pressure if the subs come off the bench and score to keep their place in the starting line-up.”

Pioneered by Eddie Jones, the former England and Australia rugby union head coach, Duran’s role in the Villa side is best described as a “finisher”. The concept of starters and finishers, which takes inspiration from closer pitchers in baseball, spins the negative connotations around substitutes and uses positive language, highlighting the essential job players from the bench have in winning matches.

Manchester United’s treble-winning side in 1999 has strong competition up front (Alex Livesey /Allsport)

Former England boss Gareth Southgate adopted the language ahead of England reaching the final of Euro 2020, describing Jack Grealish’s impact using those terms. Eberechi Eze, who came off the bench three times in England’s run to the final this summer, had a similar role at Euro 2024.

“It’s not just about the 11,” Eze told Mail Online in the summer. “It’s about the whole team, the culture, the collective. You win the tournament as a collective.

“It’s putting your ego to the side and focusing on what’s important for the team. If you have that type of culture, which we do, you’ve got the best chance. The manager spoke about ‘finishers’. We call them finishers. We know that. The players that come onto the pitch there is a mentality about it; there’s a way to go about it. That role is important. It’s not just about the 11.”

Still, it’s one thing to adopt that role for a short time during a summer tournament for your national team and another to accept it in the long term at the club level. Le Fondre was willing to put his ego aside to contribute from the bench as Reading unsuccessfully tried to stay up in the Premier League, but was back to playing a more primary role again the following season in the Championship.

Villa have a long-term plan to incorporate Duran and Watkins in the starting line-up, but there is awareness that Duran can only be a super sub for so long. He’s a precocious talent with confidence in his ability to back it up, and suitors will try their hand at his signature — as they did in the summer when he was linked heavily with numerous clubs including West Ham and Chelsea.

“(Duran’s) getting more wanted by the week,” says Redknapp. “His performances from the bench are making clubs look at him for when the next window’s coming around. He’s in a good position right now under Emery, but he won’t want to sit around for a year doing what he’s doing. He’s going to want to start.”

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)