Chopping and changing but average age of Albion squad goes down
TOO MUCH TINKERING FOR MANY FANS’ LIKING IN 2021-22 CAMPAIGN
Long-standing Burton Albion fan and BBC Radio Derby summariser TONY BENTLEY looks at how the Brewers squad was used in the 2021-22 campaign
THE 2021-22 season kicked off at Shrewsbury Town with a 1-0 win as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink handed starting debuts to five of his summer recruits – Burton-born Ryan Leak, Deji Oshilaja, Tom O’connor, Jacob Maddox and Omari Patrick.
Of the five, only Oshilaja remained a regular starter at the end of the season, having made 30 League starts. O’connor and Patrick both departed in January.
Maddox, having looked a really exciting player in pre-season was injured inside the first half hour of the campaign. He seemed to pick up a variety of injuries and only started seven further League games.
Leak was an interesting case. The side won its first three games playing a back four of John Brayford, Conor Shaughnessy, Leak and Tom Hamer.
Those four played a total of six games together as a defence and picked up a season-best 1.83 points per game from those games.
Leak barely featured at all in the second half of the season, as he appeared to be a bit of a fall guy when things didn’t go to plan.
He started the first game in 2022, the 4-1 victory over Crewe Alexandra, then made only one further start and one substitute appearance in the following 23 matches.
A big criticism of Hasselbaink among many Brewers fans last season, and one that will hopefully be addressed in 2022-23, was the continual changing of the side.
In 46 League games, the Brewers were unchanged on only three occasions, with the manager making on average three changes every game.
What all those changes led to was only five outfield players making 30 or more League starts, with only one making over 40 – Hamer made 45, Shaughnessy 35, Brayford and Cameron Borthwick-jackson 33, and Oshilaja 30.
The changes in defence also happened with alarming regularity as both a back four and back three with wing-back combinations continued to change almost on a game-bygame basis.
Hasselbaink deployed a back four in 18 League games – six wins, five draws and seven defeats, achieving 1.28 points per game.
They kept two clean sheets, both in the first three games of the season, and conceded 26 goals at a rate of 1.44 goals per game.
In those 18 games there were eight different compositions with the previously mentioned four of Brayford/shaughnessy/leak/ Hamer being the most successful.
Burton started 28 League games with a back three and wing-backs – eight wins, six draws and 14 defeats achieving 1.08 points per game.
They kept seven clean sheets and conceded 44 goals at 1.46 points per games as Hasselbaink tried 13 different combinations, with Sam Hughes, Brayford and Oshilaja used the most on 10 occasions earning 1.20 points per game.
If we compare the low number of players making 30 or more starts in the season to the Brewers’ two recent promotion seasons – in 201415 from League Two and 2015-16 from League One.
Both of those seasons reaped the benefit of having a settled side.
In the 2014-15 League Two title winning side there were eight players who made more than 30 League appearances, of which four made over 40 starts – John Mclaughlin 45, Phil Edwards 45, John Mousinho 42, Stuart Beavon 41, Robbie Weir 39, Shane Cansdell-sherriff 37, Lucas Akins and Damien Mccrory both 32.
The following 2015-16 League One runner-up season saw seven players make more than 30 League appearances, of which four again made over 40 starts – Edwards and Mousinho 46, Mclaughlin 45, Beavon 41, Mccrory 37, Tom Naylor 35 and Weir 32.
One significant improvement that Hasselbaink has overseen in his previous three transfer windows is bringing the average age of the squad down, recruiting players who are in, or approaching, their peak playing years.
When Hasselbaink was appointed, the age profile of the squad he inherited suggested it was way too high to mount any serious promotion challenge.
As he and his assistant Dino Maamria watched a 5-1 home defeat to Oxford United on January 2, 2021, they saw a side with six players over 30 years old in the starting 11 – Brayford 32, Michael Bostwick 32, John Joe O’toole 32, Colin Daniel 32, Stephen Quinn 34 and Lucas Akins 30.
It is widely regarded that the peak years for most outfield players are between the ages of 22 and 27.
Look through Premier League history and the importance of having players at their peak could hardly be clearer.
There were many aspects to Leicester City’s incredible Premier League title win in 2015-16 but the age of their starting line-up was arguably one of the untold tales of their success.
The youngest regular starter was 24 and the oldest was 31. These were players in their prime.
The majority of Manchester United’s treble-winning line-up were aged between 22 and 27 and the same is true of Arsenal’s “Invincibles”.
Remarkably, as many as 12 of the 13 players to feature regularly for Chelsea in their record-breaking 2004-05 season were in that age bracket too.
In the Brewers’ 2014-15 League Two title winning side there were eight players who made more than 30 League starts. Of those, six outfield players were in the age range of 24 to 31, with only 32-year-old Cansdell-sherriff being older.
The following 2015-16 League One runner up season again saw seven players make more than 30 League appearances. Of those, six were outfield players aged between 24 and 31.
This summer the Brewers boss has offered new deals to 34-yearolds Brayford and Michael Mancienne.
The difference now to when Hasselbaink was appointed is that the other 17 contracted players are aged between 20 (Terry Taylor and Ciaran Gilligan) and 29 (Oshilaja).