Identifying the right man to lead Sheffield United through identity crisis as another summer crossroads approaches
Danny Hall argues Chris Wilder is the right man to lead Sheffield United’s search to rediscover their identity, after a difficult season - and perhaps because of it.
After he had finished dissecting Sheffield United’s latest home defeat on Saturday in his post-match press conference, Chris Wilder was made aware that a long-serving volunteer on hospital radio commentary was hanging up his microphone.
Jonathan Haigh then explained the rather valid reason, that he is moving to Plymouth. “Really?” Wilder asked. “Has it been that bad this season?”
His tongue was firmly in his cheek and there was a smile on his face, albeit more the laugh-or-you’ll-cry type. But make no mistake, Wilder is hurting at his side’s undoubted underachievement this season.
That hurt, for my twopenneth worth, is one of the main reasons why there is no better man to lead the latest Bramall Lane rebuild than the man currently in the hotseat. Some may disagree; he may even do so himself.
But there is something about him that seems to excel when the bullets are flying and backs are very much pressed against the wall. Of course, like all managers, he would prefer life to have been a little more straightforward than it has been this season.
In an alternate universe he stayed in post beyond last season’s play-off final defeat. Tweaked a few things that he knew needed to be tweaked, followed the Coventry City route of evolution rather than revolution. I’m no gambling man but had that happened, my money would be on United finishing a lot closer to City than they will do this weekend.
United’s hierarchy saw a different path and it doesn’t need recapping here how disastrously that turned out. The evidence has been there all season, playing out in front of our eyes most weekends.
This is, put simply, a Sheffield United team in name only. There is no real identity, not a great deal for most supporters to recognise in many players that represent them on the pitch. And that is a problem.
One, too, that Wilder has long since diagnosed, although he has had to wait impatiently to administer the cure this summer. His latest estimate, that as many as NINETEEN players could move on, speaks volumes.
By Wilder’s own admission United have underachieved this season - which says a lot, considering they were sleepwalking towards League One when he returned in September - and he accepts his share of the responsibility for that.
So many column inches have already been dedicated to their deeper issues at play, though, and thankfully the United owners have learned their lessons. Now - or, at least, after Saturday’s final curtain at Derby County - is it surely time to look forward and focus on what comes next?
Wilder has been in the game long enough to know that the pressure will be on him to hit the ground running next season, especially if he receives the support he is hoping for in the summer. The stakes will be higher, the margin for error slimmer. But at least judge him on his own work, not his efforts to clear up someone else’s.
The record books show that Wilder has rebuilt United once, after walking into a shell of a club back in 2016, and worked wonders to banish the scars of the most recent Premier League experience and lead them to within 15 minutes of promotion last term.
To do so this time around may be the biggest challenge of the lot, but there is no one better equipped. Now 58, he is as enthused and motivated as he has ever been. It’s also true that time stands still for no man and one day, United will have to move on. But not yet. Not while there is another chapter to be written in Wilder’s remarkable Bramall Lane story.