Touches, hunger and an earworm chant - Quiet Sheffield Wednesday new boy could be their most vital cog
Billy Mitchell joined Sheffield Wednesday from Millwall earlier this summer.
Football, as in life, attracts all sorts. The caricature playboy; loud clothes, loud personality with loud music blaring from the speakers of a sports car? They’re actually few and far between, at EFL level at least.
On admittedly limited sightings, Billy Mitchell seems to be an example of a far more common touch, a polite and unassuming chap whose talent and aptitude for hard work has taken him to one of the most sought-after careers the world over. And at Sheffield Wednesday, his softly-spoken nature off the field could not be more misaligned with the forceful impact he is set to carry into their rebuild mission.
The 25-year-old arrived to Wednesday later than others and spent the early stages of his settling-in period training alone in some sessions as he sought to regain match sharpness after a summer training away from the Millwall home from which he turned down offers of a new contract.
Injury niggles have followed, but what is clear even in the embryonic stages of his time at S6 is that he will serve to be a hugely influential figure. In a revamped Wednesday midfield, Mitchell has routinely had more touches on the ball than even Owls stalwart Barry Bannan - and has earned a pass completion rate of 88 per cent along the way.
The Orpington grafter goes about his role differently to Bannan and others but is asked to provide ballast to the Wednesday midfield alongside athleticism and the ability to retain possession. In a side mantra’d on verticality in their passing, the thought may well be that Mitchell can add line-splitting passes to his efforts as he continues to race towards full match sharpness and after an extended international break, eyes will be on him and other new players to see how much further they have embedded into the new Wednesday way.
“I see him a lot as a defensive six but he can also play as an eight,” Owls boss Henrik Pedersen told The Star not long ago. “But he is a strong runner defensively. He covers a lot of distance, he runs more than 12km in a match sometimes.
“And he is tactically a very strong and defensive player. In the offensive part, he is the connection between right and left. Between the build-up to the red zone and the finalisation. So of course he is a very important player. He is one of the key players to get the flow of the game, defensively or offensively.”
Supporters have penned him an ear-worming new chant, the lyrics ‘Wednesday’s gunna win the league, with Billy Mitchell’ having been placed to the tune of ‘Silence is Talking’ by Wednesday-supporting band Reverend and the Makers - and going further back from the hook of ‘Low Rider’ by WAR. The song made its full, unstrained debut in the win over Peterborough United a month ago and will likely become a routine offering if and when the Owls continued towards the top of the table this season.
It is around Mitchell that much of their success in both directions may well come; either in providing a shield for the increasingly-stoic defence or in providing assistance in setting up attacks. Quietly going about his business off the field, he may well prove to be the most important cog in the good machine Wednesday.
“He is a very, very dedicated player,” Pedersen continued. “A very dedicated player with a big hunger to learn. He is very interested in his own personal development. He is very interested in the game. And to learn about the game and speak in general about football.
“He is an intelligent young man with a big hunger to learn. With a big ambition to be better and to reach something with Sheffield Wednesday.”