"Hurting us" - Sheffield United must find solution to damaging 22-point habit that’s keeping them out of promotion picture
"Hurting us" - Sheffield United must find solution to damaging 22-point habit that’s holding them back from promotion
The league table, as they say, never lies; but sometimes it doesn’t tell the full truth either. Last night’s clash between Sheffield United and Norwich City was between two of the form teams in the division, despite both going into it mid-table in the Championship.
Had the season begun when Chris Wilder returned in September, the Blades would be within touching distance of the play-off places. Instead, with just nine games left, they trail sixth-placed Wrexham by eight points. That could become 11 if the Welshmen win their game in hand.
Amazingly, per Transfermarkt data, only two sides in the Championship this season - Wrexham and leaders Coventry City - have led more times in games this season than United, who effectively wrote off their first six games of the season under Ruben Selles.
But from winning positions, the Blades have dropped a whopping 22 points this term - the latest missed opportunity coming on Wednesday night when Norwich came from behind to win at Carrow Road.
The Blades also dropped two more points late on at the weekend, at home to West Brom, and could easily have taken more points from their two games against leaders Coventry after taking the lead in both games.
"Hurting us" - Sheffield United must find solution to damaging 22-point habit that’s keeping them out of promotion picture
United obviously cannot afford to let such a substantial number of points slip from their grasp and expect to have a successful season. It could be mentality, an attitude to defending, a group scattered with inexperience and occasional bouts of naivety, or a combination of a number of factors.
It’s also not automatically a defensive issue, with all of United’s forwards guilty this season of missing some golden opportunities to take the game away from the opposition before the Blades found themselves pegged back. The cure may prove more difficult than the diagnosis, but the damaging habit is something boss Wilder will look to address in the short term and beyond.
“If I could adjust it or affect it, then maybe I would have done it,” he said when asked about the 22 point statistic. “I'm quite an old operator on that front. But you look at it, it's a side put together. It's got youth in the team, and I think sometimes that goes amiss in terms of Femi Seriki and Tyler Bindon and Harrison Burrows, his second season in the Championship. Sydie [Peck] and Brooksy [Andre Brooks].
“But that's no excuse because they all take the plaudits when they're doing well and winning games of football and getting themselves ahead of the game. So it's something that we have to get right in the medium and longer term, of course, because that's what's hurting us.
“We knew it was going to be a difficult game and I'm not taking anything away from Norwich City's second half performance. They were better than us, they had more energy, their subs impacted the game better than our subs did.
“And that's not being critical because our subs came into a difficult situation when the players that were already on the pitch were turning the ball over and making some poor decisions. Danny Ings coming on the pitch has got nothing to do with Femi making that decision, and Chongy [Tahith Chong] coming on has nothing to do with Brooksy not picking up a runner at the corner.
“But certainly it just feels there's something missing that we can't really put our finger on, and we've got to try and find that answer to it. Whether the players that are playing at the moment through time, manage to take that from one to two instead of taking it from one to minus one.”