When Danny Rohl emerged into the Stadium of Light’s media room he cut an emotionally drained figure.
Moments earlier, the German had been doused by his Sheffield Wednesday players when trying to conduct an in-house club interview, for they had secured their Championship status for another year against all the odds.
Rohl admitted it had been a tiresome six-month period since arriving at Hillsborough in October. Wednesday were bottom of the table with just two points from their first 11 games back in the Championship after former boss Darren Moore held the Owls to a goalless draw upon his return to the club with Huddersfield Town following his bewildering exit in the summer.
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Moore’s replacement, Xisco Munoz, failed to win any of his 10 games in charge at Hillsborough – his penultimate game coming in Sunderland’s rampant 3-0 success under Tony Mowbray in September. When Rohl came in a fortnight later, Wednesday were seven points adrift of safety with all of the momentum built up from promotion having eroded away.
“That’s what killed us at the start of the season,” admitted midfield mainstay Barry Bannan to BBC Sheffield following their 2-0 win over Sunderland on the final day of the season. “We had momentum from last season with the amazing turnaround in the semis and winning at Wembley, but we let that slip coming into the season.
“It felt as if we’d been relegated the way we came into the season and after being promoted the way we were it shouldn’t have been like that.”
It left Rohl an almost insurmountable task from the offset.
“I don’t think anyone thought it would turn out how it has,” EFL North East and Yorkshire content editor Dom Howson told We Are Sunderland.
“Effectively they were handicapped, or had had a points deduction, to start the season with two points from 10 to then take, from the following 35 matches, 50 points. This calendar year it’s promotion form. It’s astonishing.”
But how did Rohl manage to keep Sheffield Wednesday afloat in the Championship? We Are Sunderland takes a closer look at the highly-rated German head coach and why Sunderland are interested in bringing the 35-year-old to the Stadium of Light this summer.
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It wasn’t just points Rohl was in need of when arriving at Hillsborough during October’s international break, it was everything; goals, structure, defensive solidity and on top of that he had to try and repair the relationship between a passionate fanbase and their club. Five months earlier, over 40,000 Sheffield Wednesday fans had exhilarated in the joys of the most dramatic of play-off campaigns.
Having trailed Peterborough United 4-0 after the first leg, Wednesday produced an historic comeback in the second leg of their semi-final with a 5-1 victory before going on to win the shootout. At Wembley, in the final, Josh Windass headed the Owls back to the Championship with effectively the final touch of the ball after 120 minutes of stalemate. Like Sunderland a year previous after their play-off final success over Wycombe Wanderers, Wednesday had the wind in their sails to attack the Championship.
That was until a difference of opinion between the popular Moore and chairman Dejphon Chansiri led to Moore’s exit – Moore citing a lack of alignment in his and the club’s vision while Chansiri suggested Moore’s desire for a new contract became overpowering. The parallels between Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland are quite remarkable in that sense if you consider Alex Neil’s early exit from the Stadium of Light in August 2022 just months after he had won promotion at Wembley, with disputes over the club’s vision and a new contract at the centre of his departure.
But where Sunderland were able to galvanise under Mowbray, Wednesday spiralled out of control under Munoz. They scored just five goals in their first 10 games of the season, their highest expected goals (xG) tally registering at 0.6 against Swansea City in a 3-0 defeat. They conceded 18 with their highest xG against coming on the opening night of the season against Southampton in a 2-1 defeat.
Since Rohl’s appointment, Wednesday scored 39 in 35 matches and conceded 50 but you can see by their average trendline how he was able to stabilise the quality of chances they were giving up, the most highest ranked coming against Sunderland on the final day at 1.15, while drastically improving the chances they created themselves – 1.20 at Queens Park Rangers in December a high point.
This can be put into greater context when you compare Sheffield Wednesday’s xG numbers both for and against with the rest of the Championship under both Munoz and Rohl.
The first 10 games of the season under the Spaniard, Wednesday were ranked bottom of the table when it comes to their xG for at just 0.55 per 90 minutes – even worse than Rotherham United (0.6) who would end up being relegated with just five wins to their name.
Since Rohl’s arrival, however, Wednesday moved up that particular league table into 12th in the Championship at 1.10 per 90 minutes, just three places behind Sunderland in ninth at 1.15 in the same timeframe. For balance, in Rohl’s first 10 games in charge, the same number as Munoz, Wednesday were 10th in in the Championship in terms of their xG at 1.15 – a period which, coincidentally was Sunderland’s strongest as they ranked first with 1.67.
In order to improve their xG output, Rohl simply had his team being a little more courageous in the final third and taking more shots. During their first 10 games of the season under Munoz, StatsBomb registered just 21 attempts at goal and only 15 of those attempts coming from inside the opposition penalty area.
In contrast during Rohl’s first 10 games in charge, a period which included three wins and a draw, Wednesday had 37 efforts at goal, with 27 of those coming from inside the penalty area, resulting in nine goals.
It hasn’t been quite straightforward for Rohl, far from it in fact. His team have taken a number of heavy punches over the course of the season and have looked down and out on several occasions; there were a trio of 4-0 defeats at home to Millwall, away at Southampton and away at Huddersfield before a 6-0 humbling by Ipswich Town at Portman Road ahead of the March international break. When Rohl and his team returned, they lost just one of their final eight games of the season.
Clean sheets felt as though they would be important to Rohl after keeping just two in their first 11 games under both Munoz and caretaker boss Neil Thompson against Huddersfield and, remarkably, Leeds United. Rohl would steer his team to 11 clean sheets in his 35 games in charge with three of those coming in those final eight games.
Key within that is how much of the ball Wednesday were allowing teams to have which, in turn, allowed them to create chances to score goals. In Munoz’ opening to the season, Wednesday were conceding, on average, 85 per cent opposition pass success, the worst in the division, which was leading to, on average, 13.1 shots against them which was ranked 14th.
Rohl, over his time until the end of the season, was able to improve on both of those metrics by reducing the percentage of opposition pass success rate down to 80, 11th in the division, which led to an average of 12.7 shots against per game, ranking them 11th in the Championship.
They are only small enhancements, but they contributed to a big impact.
Although there were only minor tweaks defensively, it did yield an improvement. It’s in attack, however, where we saw the biggest change under Rohl.
As we have seen previously, Rohl’s team had more shots at goal immediately over the same number of games as Munoz. On average, under Munoz, Wednesday were having just 6.89 attempts at goal, only worsened by Rotherham. Whereas under Rohl, that figure almost doubled to 12.31 per 90 minutes.
If we compare the two attacking radars, courtesy of StatsBomb, it shows an even wider transformation in their attacking output which also offers an insight into their style of play, which we will come onto.
The radars show an increase in all attacking metrics such as xG, shots, counter attacking shots, box crosses, set piece xG, high press shots as well as a shorter distance when it comes to the goalkeeper’s pass length.
We can analyse this a little further to understand Rohl’s style of play. For context, we will again consider Munoz’ opening 10 games in comparison to Rohl’s first 10 games as head coach.
The action maps below show Sheffield Wednesday’s opposition half actions; things such as carries, recoveries, pressures and shots at goal. It’s clear to see that both Munoz and Rohl favoured the wings in their approach play but you can see by the volume of actions during Rohl’s 10 games (on the right) just how much more they were attacking in those areas of the field with 535 registered actions compared to 469 under Munoz.
This can also be seen in the accompanying visual of Sheffield Wednesday’s pressures in the final third, with Rohl seeing his team produce slightly more pressure on the opposition in their own defensive third as shown by the volume of blue markers.
The high pressing brand of football is something which continues to both grow and evolve at all levels of the game but it is a brand of football Rohl, in particular, is accustomed to owing to his backstory.
At just 35-years-old, Rohl already has a highly impressive CV having worked for RB Leipzig, Southampton, Bayern Munich and the German national team prior to his first full-time role as a head coach in S6.
Similar to another of Sunderland’s head coach candidates Will Still, Rohl’s first forays into his brief post-playing career saw him as an analyst with Leipzig where he was able to learn and develop the way of German gegenpressing, a term coined in part by the philosophies of former Manchester United head coach Ralph Ragnick, once dubbed the ’Fussball Professor,’ who helped ingrain the Red Bull style of play we still see today in terms of their desire to regain possession within 10 seconds.
It's a style which has been developed further by the likes of Jurgen Klopp with Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s success-laden career with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
Former Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl would continue that trend with Leipzig when replacing Ragnick, with Rohl swiftly promoted to a first team coaching position in what formed the beginning of a strong relationship between Rohl and Hasenhuttl as they finished second to Bayern Munich in their first season.
That gave Rohl experience of coaching in the Champions League and, subsequently, the Europa League, where they reached the quarter-finals, as the Hasenhuffl-Rohl tandem earned standout victories over Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Napoli in the 2017-18 season.
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Rohl followed Hasenhuttl to Southampton for his first taste of English football as the pair ensured Premier League safety at St. Mary’s which included their first home win over Arsenal.
It’s reported that Rohl would often spend hours until the early mornings analysing games with Hasenhuttl to establish who could work within the parameters of their high pressing style of play, with Rohl now a firm advocate of that philosophy.
The German enjoyed a successful seven-month period with the Austrian at Southampton before he was approached to return to his homeland with Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich where he would become assistant manager to Hansi Flick. A report by The Athletic highlighted how Rohl’s pressing sessions in training were one of the reasons behind the team’s improvement that season as Bayern went on to enjoy one of their most successful campaigns in history when completing a coveted treble of the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal Cup and Champions League.
Rohl was undoubtedly making a name for himself in the world of coaching as Bayern retained their Bundesliga trophy the following season while also bringing the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup back to Bavaria.
It led to Rohl earning international recognition with the German national team at the end of the 2020/21 season when following Flick out of the Allianz Arena, with board member for sport Hasan Salihamidžić acknowledging Rohl’s impact upon his departure having insisted he ‘made an important contribution over the past two years.’ Rohl remained with the German national team until his arrival in South Yorkshire earlier this season.
“I thought it was very risky to bring in a rookie manager,” Howson told We Are Sunderland. “But you do look at his pedigree and it’s nuts, really, that he’s at Sheffield Wednesday. He was part of the coaching team at Southampton, but he’s worked for the German national team and he’s worked at Bayern Munich. What is he doing at Sheffield Wednesday?
“And when you consider in January he only signed four loan players who weren’t really ripping it up. They’ve just got so many things right.”
The culmination of getting those things right came at the Stadium of Light on the final day of the season where Rohl’s side secured a 2-0 victory over a laboured Sunderland side to secure their Championship status and complete a remarkable escape act.
A look back at that game also demonstrates what Rohl would bring to Wearside if he were appointed, with some of those traits crafted throughout an esteemed coaching career coming to the fore.
Wednesday arrived in a 3-4-3 set-up with the use of wing-backs in what was a very hybrid system which clearly involved plenty of energy and rotation when necessary. The linchpin of that system was Bannan who was almost given free licence by Rohl both defensively and in attack – the Scotsman’s involvement in the opening goal a clear indication of his importance to Rohl’s approach.
And it’s Bannan who starts the move when receiving possession just inside his own half. Wednesday have six blue and white shirts in the Sunderland half with Sunderland incredibly narrow throughout their 4-2-3-1 system which creates plenty of space for Liam Palmer, the right-sided centre-back, on the right.
Bannan plays a low rasping ball out wide to the channel where Palmer can attack the space as Sunderland must shuffle across the field in unison.
Bannan’s advances after the pass mean that it’s now seven-on-seven in Sunderland’s defensive third with no real engagement towards Palmer.
Palmer eventually plays a simple pass wide to Windass but, crucially, he continues his run into the penalty area.
Bannan, at the point, has arrived on the edge of the area unmarked and provides an option for Windass, something which draws the attention of both Pierre Ekwah and Callum Styles who allow Palmer to drift into the penalty area unmarked.
Windass plays a simple reverse pass to Bannan who then executes an exquisite first time ball between Styles and Ekwah into the unmarked Palmer who now has clear space between Sunderland’s left centre-back Luke O’Nien and left-back Aji Alese.
Palmer is able to steady himself before firing with power towards goal which beats Nathan Bishop to hand Wednesday a priceless lead.
What is noticeable, however, is how Rohl’s team are outnumbering Sunderland inside their own penalty area in this attack – an example of how Rohl has been able to get his team to produce more efforts at goal and improve their attacking output by simply committing more bodies forward.
The second goal, again, shows how Rohl’s team do this.
Galvanised by their opening goal, safety felt tangible by this stage as the away team added an element of conviction and swagger to their display before doubling their lead.
The move begins with centre-back Dominic Iorfa in possession, who is allowed to advance into Sunderland’s half unopposed. The key here is how Rohl has instructed his team to attack down the right channel, Sunderland’s left, given Mike Dodds’ team had conceded from that area of the pitch in each of their two previous games heading into the final day against Watford and Millwall.
Those goals against came when set-up as a back five with Styles operating at left wing-back whereas here the Hungarian was in defensive midfield as Dodds went with a back four.
But still, that area of the field became problematic as Sheffield Wednesday overloaded it.
Iorfa’s pass found Palmer in an advanced position once more and he was allowed to turn unopposed from Styles and continue the attack by extending the play to Pol Valentin.
Valentin is now able to square up against Alese in a head-to-head where the Spaniard backs himself to get the better of the defender who has spent the majority of the season in the treatment room with injury.
Alese makes a poor judgement call in going to ground as Valentin is able to beat the challenge and now finds himself in a promising position on the edge of the penalty area where, again, Wednesday have bodies forward.
This creates an issue for O’Nien who either has to move out to address the threat of Valentin and hand the numerical advantage in the box to Sheffield Wednesday, or stay in his position and allow Valentin to advance on goal further.
O’Nien ends up confronting Valentin who waits just long enough to draw the defender away before picking out an unmarked Windass in the penalty area who hammers in a second and decisive goal of the afternoon.
The win over Sunderland on the final day of the season also provided a small window into the style of play Rohl likes to implement from the back which is why he brought in a new goalkeeper in the January window in the form of Brighton & Hove Albion’s James Beadle to replace Cameron Dawson.
As we saw earlier in Sheffield Wednesday’s attacking radar, the length of goalkeeper passes reduces under Rohl, 14 per cent below the league average, with the instruction being to operate almost as a sweeper keeper in order to shift the opposition’s first line of press around. This approach requires technically sound, ball-playing centre-backs in addition, but Rohl felt the goalkeeping position was the first ingredient he needed to make amends in the second half of the season.
The image below shows the start of a move early in the first half against Sunderland which highlights the importance of the goalkeeper and centre-backs who split wide to provide two options for Beadle, depending on Adil Aouchiche’s pressing on the edge of the box.
Behind the Frenchman, Sunderland’s three attacking midfield players of Patrick Roberts, Jobe Bellingham and Jack Clarke are well advanced as they attempt to force a high turnover. Roberts is key to watch in this move in how Wednesday are able to drag him away from the right side of the pitch through Bannan who again highlights his use both in defence and attack in this move and demonstrates why he’s a key figure for Rohl.
Sensing the danger from Sunderland’s high press, Bannan drops into an anchoring role just in front of the two centre-backs which brings Roberts away from his right-wing area of the field. As Beadle and Iorfa exchange passes, Bannan’s movement in dragging Roberts away from his position and luring Sunderland’s four attacking players into a condensed area of the field frees up Di'Shon Bernard on the left.
Bernard now has space in front of him to drive into as Wednesday have eliminated Sunderland’s first line of press with some clever off the ball movement and a goalkeeper who is comfortable with the ball at his feet.
Sunderland are able to regroup into their original shape but not before Bernard has been able to play through the lines and into midfield with Anthony Musaba.
Masuba is able to turn and drive towards the opposition half with Marvin Johnson at left wing-back providing an option out wide while Bannan remains a key figure once more as, after initially dropping deep to aid the first phase of play, he is now also ahead of Sunderland’s forward line to contribute in attack.
Musaba delays his pass just long enough to draw in the next line of Sunderland’s press from Ekwah, one of the defensive midfielders, and Trai Hume at full-back.
Musaba plays a simple pass to Johnson on the touchline but with Ekwah now dragged a little out of position, and Hume also engaged, it leaves a clear space for Bannan to run into and for Johnson who quickly shifts the play between the two Sunderland players.
Rather than take control of possession himself, Bannan allows Johnson’s pass to find Ike Ugbo with the Scotsman then bypassing Ugbo to provide an additional attacking outlet.
Suddenly, Sunderland are outnumbered by blue and white shirts five-to-three. But for some miscommunication between Ugbo and the chasing Musaba, Wednesday might have threatened Bishop’s goal. But it was a clear example of the processes and principles Rohl likes to install from his teams, borne out of that German philosophy.
On the opposite side of the ball, too, Wednesday displayed characteristics of that desire to win back possession within 10 seconds as high up the field as they possible can. They do this by trying to utilise a box system as their first line of defence from the front when pressing teams.
If we show an example of Sunderland starting with the ball in possession of Bishop in goal, similar to the previous example with Beadle, Sunderland’s centre-backs split wide to create a bigger angle and better options for Bishop to pass to.
The difference is the structure of Wednesday’s press.
Their three front players of Musaba, Ugbo and Windass lead the press but they are anchored by Bannan who creates the base of a box approach to force Sunderland into a turnover. It allows Wednesday, and their opponent, to feel like they have an extra man in closing down as there is always a player alongside or behind.
As O’Nien is in possession on the left of his own penalty area, Windass is the first to engage while Ugbo closes the angle off back to Bishop, with Bannan shutting down the option into Ekwah, centrally.
O’Nien’s options are limited as he is forced to play the ball down the line into Alese who is swarmed under pressure from Palmer while the spare man this box system approach allows, on this occasion Will Vaulks, is able to press any remaining space or confront any likely option from Alese who, in this example, is Styles.
Alese’s pass inside to Styles is immediately pressurised by Vaulks who has now reformed the box system on the right side of the field as Musaba becomes the free player back over on the left.
Styles is closed down as his pass is blocked out for a throw where Sheffield Wednesday can attempt to close Sunderland in deep inside their own half.
It’s an effective defensive system which requires a lot of hard work and an acknowledgement of who becomes the spare man from midfield and attack in terms of when to form part of the box or not, but when it works it is very difficult for teams to find a way through consistently.
It’s not just against Sunderland where this tactic can be seen.
In their final home game of the season against West Bromwich Albion, Wednesday deployed a similar approach in trying to win back possession. As you can see in the image below, West Brom are actually able to escape the box press on this occasion as play is spread wide where the spare man then shows his benefit to the system, Musaba in this example, by chasing down the ball.
Should West Brom get beyond Musaba, however, there is a rigid back five in place still to penetrate which, in turn, allows those further up the field to get back and aid their defenders.
And it’s not just in open play this is used.
The example below from the opening minutes against West Brom shows how Wednesday set-up from an opposition throw-in with that box function clearly in use as Ugbo, the centre-forward, is seen as the spare man with Bannan leading the top of the box press. The beauty of that spare man being able to fluctuate is why this system has its merits.
To combat it, West Brom attempt a longer throw infield to Okay Yokuşlu which beats the initial box format. But it is here where we see how alert other players within the team are.
As Yokuşlu attempts a first time header forward from the throw-in, Palmer has already read the situation and is aggressive in his pressing of Mikey Johnston. Before Yokuşlu has even made contact with the header, Palmer is on his toes ready to pounce.
Sure enough, as the ball comes the way of Johnston, Palmer is there to force Johnston to go back which allows Wednesday to reset into their shape.
“We have got a top manager involved now, and it’s difficult to describe it but I would say he is probably the best manager I have had in my whole football career. We need to trust in him because I think he is destined for the top,” Bannan told the Sheffield Star of Rohl early in his tenure.
“I have sometimes found myself in team meetings thinking; ‘wow’, kind of thing. Or ‘how has he seen that?’ He has shown me things on the tactics board, in meetings and in games that I have never seen any manager do.
“We have the right man in charge and it’s just about sticking with him and I have got no doubt this club will see better days.”
The prospect of those better days at Hillsborough are why it will be difficult for Sunderland to acquire the services of the 35-year-old in their head coach search.
Details of Rohl’s deal in S6 remain undisclosed but part of the key negotiations with Chansiri in the immediate aftermath of the season are about Rohl securing a new deal, with the German keen to seek the assurances from the club’s owner over a number of important factors such as a transfer budget as well as the improvement and development of a number of facilities behind the scenes he feels are key to progress the club.
Rohl revealed after the win over Sunderland on the final day of the season he had held preliminary talks with Chansiri, with further meetings scheduled throughout the month.
Reports have suggested any deal to get Rohl out of Sheffield will be costly with a compensation package of up to £5million mooted and an additional £5m for his backroom staff, which will be a significant stumbling block for Sunderland given their stance over Still in December when looking for Mowbray’s successor. But there can be no doubting that Rohl has impressed on his Championship bow as a head coach.
“He’s going to want to make the team better with his own signings and players and he’ll have a chance to fully install his philosophy, the way he wants to play and his principles over the summer as well but he needs to speak to the chairman and get what he wants,” said Bannan.
“If he does get what he asks for the sky is the limit for us, especially with the momentum we’ve got now. Momentum is a wonderful thing in football and if he gets the chance to bring his own players in we’ll be fighting at the other end of the table.”
Howson added to We Are Sunderland: “What is exciting for Wednesday is the fact that this guy has a serious contact book that will be able to open up doors Sheffield Wednesday haven’t really been able to barge through for years. Everything has come together very nicely.
“Danny Rohl has got a connection with the fanbase at Sheffield Wednesday like I haven’t seen since the Carvalhal era. The fans have bought into everything he’s done. I’d go as far back to when Big Ron was at Hillsborough, 20-plus years. They adore him.
“That’s why the toughest thing for Wednesday, in the bigger picture, is keeping hold of him. Danny Rohl’s stock is so high. He gave them hope when they didn’t have any. It was a fractured football club when he took over. What he’s done is remarkable to repair the connection between the fans and the team and the club.
“If I’m Sunderland, and the powers that be at the Stadium of Light, you’d be silly not to be looking at somebody like Danny Rohl if he fits in with the long-term strategy and structure. The ball is firmly in Chansiri’s court."
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