Message clear from Sheffield United dressing room as Blades look to learn from costly mistakes
Message clear from Sheffield United dressing room as Blades look to learn from costly mistakes
Skipper Japhet Tanganga has reminded his Sheffield United teammates about the importance of finishing an underwhelming season strongly, to help set the tone for what will surely be a better effort next time around. What began as a campaign of expectation for United ended up turning into a relegation battle very early.
The September return of boss Chris Wilder, just months after he was replaced by Ruben Selles, helped steady the ship and after safety was mathematically secured, there were even hopes of a crack at the top six.
But the Blades left themselves too much to do and too much traffic to pass to try and gatecrash the play-offs, while a hangover from the early struggles in terms of both their mentality and fitness has cost them dear on too many occasions.
Wilder is already preparing for a close-season clearout in a bid to refresh United’s squad but this campaign has not been written off yet, as shown by their spirit and desire to come back from 1-0 down at home to Hull City on Saturday and win 2-1 with two late goals.
Message clear from Sheffield United dressing room as Blades look to learn from costly mistakes
That gave Unitedites some welcome cheer after a six-game winless run, with the aim for United to take that momentum into the last four games of this season - and, arguably more importantly, next as well.
“The gaffer’s right; we need to show our character and finish strongly, building into next season,” the former Millwall man said. “And we did that, by coming back from 1-0 down and getting two goals.
“Even from the minute they scored, we made some great blocks. Macca [Mark McGuinness] made a great clearance off the line. Sydie [Peck] made a mistake there [for Oli McBurnie’s opener] but he didn’t stop playing and kept going. And that was our approach through the whole game.”
As the highest-profile, and most expensive, of United’s permanent additions last summer, when just over £19m was committed to permanent transfers by United’s owners and a separate chunk of change spent on loans, Tanganga is expected to be a part of the rebuild as United look to learn the lessons and go again.
But there will be a lot of his teammates who move on this summer, with boss Wilder and his coaching staff already assessing who they feel are capable of taking United forward and who will have to be sacrificed to free up funds and space in a trimmed-down squad.
“When you start a new season, you look back at last season and build from that,” Tanganga added. “That's why it's important for us to start winning these games, these last four games left. We just need to build that momentum and confidence going into pre-season.
“We know that Hull are in the play-off positions right now, but obviously you never know what could happen in the next couple of games. If we’re going to have to play them again next season or not. So we now know that, going forward, this is kind of the level and we need to keep pushing and keeping that momentum going.”