Sheffield United’s missed opportunity hard to ignore despite season turnaround after Chris Wilder’s honest “missing” admission
Sheffield United’s missed opportunity hard to ignore despite season turnaround after Chris Wilder’s honest “missing” admission
In September, with Sheffield United rooted to the foot of the Championship table and a squad whose confidence and belief had fallen through the floor, even the most optimistic Blades fan would have questioned your sanity if you’d told him, six months later, that a play-off tilt would still be mathematically possible.
Yes, they should never have been there in the first place, especially with the talent at their disposal. But the truth is that they were and when Chris Wilder walked back through the door, even he underestimated how much work was needed to get United looking upwards again.
That hasn’t dampened the disappointment of United’s recent form, which has seen them miss a huge opportunity to put real pressure on the top six by only drawing at home to West Bromwich Albion and then losing at Norwich City last night. Six points, even four, would have put a completely different complexion on the table.
The general standard of the Championship is so average this season that there was a real opportunity there for them. They may even still make a fist of it in the nine games remaining, although they have certainly made things difficult for themselves. It seems to be the United way.
But in context, how will their season as a whole be judged if, as now seems likely, they remain in the Championship for another season? For most of the season there seemed a distinct possibility that they wouldn’t, one way or the other.
The first priority after the disastrous Ruben Selles experiment was abandoned in September was keeping United in the division and in that case, it looks like mission accomplished. But the door to the top six has been slightly ajar for a while now, even tantalisingly so at times. They just have not been able to walk through it.
Sheffield United’s missed opportunity hard to ignore despite season turnaround after Chris Wilder’s honest “missing” admission
“It's quite difficult to frame, really,” Wilder told this newspaper in Norfolk last night. “I'm talking as if we're bottom three or whatever. We’re still [13th] and I don't know what the numbers are or how far we are off this, that and the other.
“So it's not panic time, it's not ‘let's demolish everything that we've done’ time. But certainly there's something missing. Whether it's consistency in approach or attitude, or key moments. Certainly in terms of ball possession and control, it's not been good enough tonight for us. And ultimately we pay the price.”
United looked like they were going to keep their season alive when they went ahead at Norwich, Jairo Riedewald scoring a rare goal. But they couldn’t extend their lead despite some good chances and couldn’t stem the tide of second-half Norwich pressure, before they capitalised on an error from Femi Seriki and scored the winner with seven minutes to go.
“It feels there’s something missing at the moment that we can’t put a finger on – and we need to find answers to that quickly,” Wilder admitted ahead of this weekend’s trip to Birmingham City, who sit in 10th and are another in that congested pack between the Blades and the top six.
“It’s not been good enough tonight and we have been punished by a good side who are in a false position in the table. The two goals we conceded were ridiculously poor ones but you could see it coming. In fairness to Norwich they were better than us in the second half and their subs impacted the game much more than ours did.
“We were in a good place after scoring our goal and I think we created more good chances than they did. But after going ahead we just didn’t look after the ball well enough. We kept turning it over and that helped Norwich get back into it.”