Chris Wilder impact highlights Sheffield United can take advantage of new Championship play-off format
Sheffield United will be looking to make sharp progress next season after costly decisions contributed to an underwhelming 2025/26 campaign.
Sheffield United, a year ago tomorrow, were celebrating reaching the Championship play-off final and moving within one win of an immediate return to the Premier League.
The Blades had just brushed Bristol City aside in their play-off semi-final, winning 6-0 on aggregate to quash any suggestions they may have been feeling sorry for themselves after missing out on automatic promotion a few weeks earlier.
Unfortunately for the Blades and Chris Wilder, the trip to Wembley to face Sunderland proved to be one step too far, with a last-gasp winner from Tommy Watson sentencing United to another season in the Championship.
But with Wilder at the helm, every Blades supporter walked away from Wembley optimistic the club would get the job done at the second time of asking, setting the ambition of earning automatic promotion this season. However, those ambitions were left in ruins after the Blades hierarchy made the decision to sack Wilder, appoint Rubén Sellés, sack him and then reappoint Wilder all in the space of just 88 days.
Throw in some questionable signings and recruitment decisions and those 88 days completely derailed United’s promotion hopes. They lost their first five Championship games of the season under Sellés, meaning Wilder returned with the club rooted to the foot of the table.
With relegation a very realistic threat, Wilder, who inherited a dressing room drained of confidence, slowly turned things around. By Christmas, United were up to 18th and within nine points of the top six. The gap was down to as few as six points by the middle of February, meaning some onlookers started to back Wilder’s troops for a late play-off push.
Ultimately, inconsistency cost the Blades and they had to settle for a mediocre 13th-placed finish. Wilder, though, was satisfied to have ended the campaign with 60 points amid the situation he had inherited when he returned to Bramall Lane in September.
Considering United did not have a single point to their name when Wilder returned, winning 60 points from 41 games was a respectable haul. Had the season started on the day Wilder was reappointed, the Blades would have finished ninth in the table, seven points shy of the top six. The reality is they finished 13 points behind sixth-placed Hull City.
As has been well-documented recently, Wilder plans to reshape his squad this summer, meaning a number of new faces are expected to come in. He is set to prioritise trying to recruit players with experience of the Championship.
Although some criticism was aimed at him towards the end of the campaign, most United supporters, deep down, know they could not wish for a better manager to oversee another S2 rebuild. He has done it before and you dare say it is a guarantee he will do it again.
Considering many elements of the squad were not wedded to his style or traditional blueprint, Wilder deserves credit for successfully steering the club away from danger and overseeing the ninth-best record in the division since his return. Give him this summer and the chance bring in players of his own, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone not backing the Blades to make progress next season.
Promotion will be the aim for the Blades next season, whether it be automatically or via the play-offs, and the new play-off format will boost their chances. From next season onwards, the top eight will all be in with a shot of promotion, with the top two going up automatically and those that finish between third and eighth competing in the play-offs.
Given United would have finished ninth in the table this season had the campaign started on the day Wilder returned, it offers even more confidence that a top eight finish next season is an achievable ambition.
The full line-up for the 2026/27 Championship campaign is still a few weeks away from being finalised, of course, with two promotions and one relegation still to be settled, but United will fancy their chances of banking a top eight finish next season to give themselves a shot at promotion back to the top flight.
Plenty of work needs to be done in the transfer window, but that is still just over a month away from opening, meaning it is only once that sparks into life that anybody will be able to make any concrete predictions.
However, United, albeit from a very low base, made enough steady progress this season to suggest they can take bigger strides next term with Wilder having overseen a pre-season and summer transfer window.