Martin Smith column: If Chris Wilder gets what he wants for Christmas, then his Sheffield United will be promoted

Chris Wilder has sent his January transfer window note to Blades owners Kevin McCabe and Prince Abdullah.
Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: Simon Bellis/SportimageChris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage
Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield Utd. Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage

Would he have been as well sending it up the chimney to Santa? Time will tell. 

This isn't another over-indulged kid asking for the football manager's equivalent of an iPhone 12 or a 5G upgrade on his UHD Playstation. 

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Wilder has been the proverbial '˜good boy' all year. Homework done immaculately every week, a popular, down-to-earth lad who gets good results with a winning attitude that inspires others.

And he's done a lot better than some of the Championship posh lads with all their money and sharp-elbowed guardians.

If that sounds like a promise from a kid who desperately needed a puppy in December but by February has to be threatened with several kinds of doom to get them to walk their furniture-chewing former best friend, it isn't.

The Prince and Mr McCabe don't get their sort-out-the-ownership day in court until May.

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By then it might be too late.  The rising tide of Wilder's ambition may have taken him elsewhere. Let's hope we aren't looking back on that as the issue that stalled the club's momentum and spoiled Christmas present and Christmases future for Sheffield United.

'˜We do have a racism problem'¦Â and it must be tackled'

'˜The difficulty is,' said the BBC Five Live pundit, '˜that we have middle-aged white journalists saying there isn't a problem and young black footballers saying that there is.'

Racism is unacceptable and destructive and can flourish anywhere because it festers and flourishes in people's heads.

Is it racist for the media to highlight that Raheem Stirling has a machine gun tattooed on his leg when he plays football in a city with one of the worst gun crime rates in Europe?  Possibly.

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Is it a misrepresentation to berate a young black player at the same club for buying his mother a house '˜before he's even played a first team game' while praising his white team-mate for doing the same thing? Probably.

Are some sections of the media guilty of racism by repetition and reinforcement of racial of stereotypes? Certainly.

Looking at the faces of the Chelsea hate-mob who screamed abuse at Sterling on Saturday you knew what they were doing.

It was the real-life version of the keyboard bigots who blight social media.

We do have a racism problem and it must be tackled.

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