Callum Styles: The Emerging Leader at West Brom

At 26, Callum Styles is hardly a veteran in footballing terms. At West Bromwich Albion this season, he suddenly feels like one.

A summer of change at The Hawthorns has stripped out much of the old guard and flooded the dressing room with youth. Seven new signings arrived aged 23 or under. Several players on the far side of 30 moved on, joined through the exit door by Karlan Grant and Kristian Bielik, both 28, and 27-year-old Josh Maja.

In that reshaped landscape, the left-back finds himself among the older heads.

"I think that's natural [to step into leadership] when you've played a lot of games in the Championship and you're getting older season by season," Styles told BBC Radio WM. The words are calm, but they carry weight. He knows exactly what is being asked of him.

This is no longer just about his own performance down the flank. The dynamic has shifted. With so many younger arrivals trying to get to grips with the relentless grind of the Championship, players who were here last year now carry a different responsibility.

"Quite a few of us that were here last year feel like it's our role to then get the new lads adjusted to the league, to the team and to the physicality as quickly as possible," he said.

That adjustment is no small task. The Championship punishes hesitation and naivety. Styles understands that the quickest way to bring the new faces up to speed is not through speeches, but by example.

"We've got to show that through us working hard ourselves and then obviously helping them off the pitch."

So the job description expands. Cover your side. Win your duels. Use the ball well. Then, away from the cameras, guide, explain, demand. The departures have created a vacuum. Styles is stepping into it, not with fanfare, but with the steady authority of a player who has lived this division and now has to help others survive it.