Russell Martin watched Leo cross the white line and immediately began thinking.
He’d seen what the kid could do before his injury through all the tapes he had requested in the days leading up to the game, but even with his injury, he knew Leo was a player he would have liked to have.
But it wasn’t yet time for fantasies, not the time to praise the opponent player.
They weren’t going to do a charity case, as a win to end the season wouldn’t be the worst for their campaign.
"Harry," he bellowed above the noise in the DW as he turned towards the bench.
Harry Darling was on his feet before the second syllable, 189 centimetres of him unfolding from the dugout and making his way across.
Russell looped an arm around his shoulder as soon as he arrived, steering him slightly away from the rest, and spoke low and direct.
"We’ve got nothing to fight for today. No relegation battle, no promotion push. The stakes aren’t ours."
He then glanced toward the pitch where the game had only just restarted after the pause from the substitutions before turning back to face the former.
"But they are Wigan’s. Every second they don’t score, the pressure builds. So I’m not putting you at the back today."
Darling looked at him, wondering what his manager had in mind.
"Instead, you are going to slot into a double pivot with Grimes. Of course, he’s going to do all the work behind, and so your job is simple. Just frustrate and hound them." Russell’s eyes moved briefly to Leo.
"Especially that one."
Darling followed his gaze and then looked back at his manager with a slow smile.
"You’re a sadist," he said.
Russell shrugged, already turning back toward the touchline.
"Hey," he said. "Hate the game, not the player."
Darling, with a little bobble of his head, took his training top from the kit manager and started pulling it on.
Leo, on the other hand, had been on the pitch for close to 3 minutes and hadn’t touched the ball once.
Swansea weren’t doing anything super, but when they were playing against a side with ten men, keeping it, moving it and making them chase wasn’t the hardest thing to do.
Leo kept moving, kept scanning, filing away the spaces he could see opening and closing on the Swansea side for whenever the ball arrived.
Finally, a moment showed up for Wigan after their captain and defensive midfielder, Grimes, looped the ball over bodies to find their right winger.
"Oh, lovely ball by Grimes," came the commentary as the right winger controlled the ball.
From there, Leo immediately jumped into action.
"Joe," he called, pointing while also moving ahead to close out any possible space.
Bennet read it and shifted across as Piroe came forward with the ball.
The Swansea winger moved with his head up and his options mapped, but immediately fell into a duel with the left back after realising all his options were blocked out.
The two of them contested for it, but in the outcome, the ball went out for a throw, and in the break, the fourth official’s board went up after the referee delayed the throw-in.
"So it’s another change here at the DW, this time from the away side as Harry Darling coming on for Swansea," the commentator noted.
"It’s an interesting decision from Russell Martin to say the least, slotting him into midfield rather than his usual defensive role. Swansea reorganising with fifteen minutes left and nothing riding on their end of this."
Leo didn’t look at the substitution board.
He was already looking elsewhere, mainly the opponent’s shape and working out where Swansea’s shape was thinnest, but the more he stared, the more he couldn’t help but feel their work cut out for them.
In reaction to that, he turned to look at the opponent coach on the touchline, the reason for the Swansea setup and in that moment, the latter was also looking straight at him.
"He’s weird," Leo muttered a moment later when Russell Martin smiled at him.
Play resumed after the change as Latibeaudière tossed it back in, and the game restarted, and almost immediately Leo went to press Piroe, who had collected it deep.
Piroe, adjusting to the quick press, flicked it into the space Leo had just left.
But Joe Bennet was already stepping across, intercepting cleanly.
And the moment he glanced up, he found Leo calling for the ball with an understated intensity that said he was ready, despite players hounding him.
The safe pass was there, but Bennet also knew that should Leo escape from the press, Wigan could soon be in the final third of the opponent’s half.
Finally, and with a sigh, Bennet laid it off.
Leo had his back to two Swansea players, with Piroe, among the two, breathing down his neck, and instead of taking it early, he waited, using his body to shield, pushing the ball away and drawing the press before suddenly sweeping it left with his foot toward the touchline.
The movement came sharp enough that Piroe committed his whole body in that direction, but Leo didn’t follow through.
Instead, he continued the swooshing motion to spin it back the other way after getting his right leg in a good position.
It hurt, but he went through with it, and it paid off because in the next moment, Piroe spun, wrong-footed with his back now to Leo, while he craned his neck to see what was going on.
The latter tried to reverse his momentum and did well to recover, but once again in that second, Leo stepped back, nudging the ball with the outside of his left leg into the space he’d just created, moving again in the direction Piroe was now coming from, and that was the final thing the Swansea striker’s balance could manage.
His legs tangled, and he went to the ground without being touched, all while the Wigan end rose excitedly in view of what they were seeing.
The Wigan end rose.
On the touchline, Dawson watched with a smile that hadn’t fully decided whether to be surprised or not.
Behind him, Nolan muttered, "Where did he learn that?", genuinely surprised because although they had to come to find Leo above decent at dribbling, he wasn’t that flashy or skilful.
And without turning around, Dawson muttered, "A lot of players,"