Danny Röhl details behind-the-scenes reasons Bambo Diaby is Sheffield Wednesday's most-used player

The Senegal-born man mountain, brought to the club in the summer from Preston North End, missed three matches under Xisco but has been a near ever-present under Danny Röhl, for whom he has sat out only half an hour of football having been subbed off against Leicester City partly to keep his legs fresh for battles ahead.

Goalkeeper Cameron Dawson is the only player to have featured more for the German and across the entire campaign, Diaby has played 1,399 minutes of Championship football, more than a whole match more than second-most Barry Bannan on 1,308.

After an up-and-down start to life with a Wednesday struggling for form, Diaby has grown in reputation in recent weeks and leads the season stats in a couple of 'brass tacks' defensive metrics; his number of clearances per 90 minutes (3.7) is far greater than that of next-best regular Di'Shon Bernard (3.1) while his average of one block per 90 is almost twice as good as Bernard's next-best 0.6. His pass completion percentage of 83.7% is the highest in the squad.

Aside from his on-field efforts, Röhl revealed the importance of Diaby behind the scenes at Middlewood Road. It is long since known that the multi-lingual defender has performed a unique role as translator to the summer signings yet to pick up fluent English, but there is a spirit of leadership described by the Wednesday manager that complements those defensive stats and has pushed him on to being their most-used individual.

"First of all, he is very positive and this is important," Röhl told The Star. "He is always, always giving his best on the pitch and when I see him in the training. When we lost against Birmingham he was the guy the next day who was immediately there and wanting to train to make it better.

"It shows a lot and he's very open-minded for all the tactical things and he's always asking what we can do. He is helpful as a translator sometimes for all of the players, he gives that link and he is very clear in his mind. Bambo wants to be the best on the pitch, to do everything and he has shown he believes in this club, in our group and our way."