What Sheffield United need to get Bramall Lane onside
Alan Biggs on Sheffield United making their home a fortress again
Sheffield United need their Bramall Lane back - or is it Bramall Lane needing its Sheffield United back?
At a time when the salvaging of football clubs is all the rage in this city, the Blades are confronting a reclamation job in their own backyard.
Starting against Queens Park Rangers this Saturday, can they turn the place back into something like its previous identity?
The evidence right now might suggest not. Which is completely out of club character in Championship terms over the modern era.
For much of the last quarter of a century, the tag “fortress Bramall Lane” has been well earned; stretching, with only fleeting downturns, through the reigns of Neil Warnock, Kevin Blackwell, Danny Wilson and Chris Wilder.
Visitors have always known they’d have a hard time, win, lose or draw.
Now consider this season’s home record. Played 6, won 1, lost 5. Goals for 4, against 11.
It’s why, knowing this is so out of character, a very frustrated Wilder told me in a radio interview last weekend: “We have a bit of a soft underbelly at the moment.”
Now that just isn’t a Blades team playing at the Lane. Wilder not just irritated but you suspect deeply puzzled also (writing ahead of the midweek trip to Coventry).
Not puzzled about the obvious superficial reason, the conceding of goals, many soft, but about why this is happening - from a highly reputable group of players.
Collectively, they just haven’t been doing it, not adding up to the apparent sum of their parts.
Some of it, you could say most, is down to the managerial hiatus of last summer when what should have been a smooth progression under Wilder was so recklessly disrupted.
But that can’t be the only reason within what looks to be a capable squad. The manager’s job is to remove the holes from the whole.
Is it a lack of leaders maybe? Certainly this side doesn’t seem to have the personality of its predecessors.
Changes of personnel are beckoning - witness Tom Cannon and Louie Barry being left out altogether last weekend - and you imagine Wilder can’t wait for January.
But there is a large chunk of the season between now and then. The challenge for players is to head off some of what’s coming.
It’s a challenge for Wilder, too, perhaps a greater one than he expected. In answer to that, he admits: “I don’t think this is straightforward.”
By that he means seeing good work and good signs on the training ground fragment during games.
And witnessing the team tickover nicely on the ball, albeit with more penetration needed, but look so vulnerable without it.
As in all things, it’s a question of balance and currently United are fumbling to find it with any consistency.
With that comes a grumbling crowd, naturally enough. Only the team can turn the double-edged sword of large home support back to their advantage.
Which is why this is the most significant rallying call from a fully understanding Wilder to his players: “They have to show bravery and courage.”