Why did it go so wrong?

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Bruce Wayne

Bruce Wayne

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Top in November, smashed pigs, beat Wolves and playing wonderful attacking football. So what happened?

Coutts injury?

Poor Jan transfer window?

Bad luck??

Was in a false position?
 



Coutts injury started it,

Then...

A loss of nerve for the overlapping centre back tactic after the Fulham home game.

A delusional Transsfer window where we convinced ourselves we had done good business. (We hadn’t )

Clarke dropping off the form of his life.

Donaldson’s legs going.

The manager having a hissy fit after Hull away.

The owners having a punch up.





All a perfect example of how not to close out a promotion challenge.
 
Couttsy. Lost 5 of the next 8 games after his injury. Within a month of that injury we then lost an inform Brooks for 2 months. We did recover some form but not enough. We haven’t scored enough since December.
 
zablade said:
Coutts injury started it,

Then...

A loss of nerve for the overlapping centre back tactic after the Fulham home game.

A delusional Transsfer window where we convinced ourselves we had done good business. (We hadn’t )

Clarke dropping off the form of his life.

Donaldson’s legs going.

The manager having a hissy fit after Hull away.

The owners having a punch up.

All a perfect example of how not to close out a promotion challenge.
Click to expand...

The run of Fulham, Birmingham, Millwall, Bristol & Preston after Coutts injury certainly took the wind out of our sails. We've been one step forward, two steps back ever since.
 
zablade said:
Coutts injury started it,

Then...

A loss of nerve for the overlapping centre back tactic after the Fulham home game.

A delusional Transsfer window where we convinced ourselves we had done good business. (We hadn’t )

Clarke dropping off the form of his life.

Donaldson’s legs going.

The manager having a hissy fit after Hull away.

The owners having a punch up.





All a perfect example of how not to close out a promotion challenge.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately true :(
 
Several factors:
- We had players playing out of their skin at the start of the season - most notably Leon Clarke who was scoring for fun. He and others could not keep it going.
- Coutts’ injury. I do think this has been overplayed a little - he’s good but not that good - but we have certainly missed him.
- Brooks’ illness. His performance at the sty and in flashes in other games showed his class and his absence was a big blow.
- Wilder’s selections and tactics have been baffling at times in recent weeks. Too many changes and not enough creativity in the starting 11.
- The biggest factor without doubt has been the pitiful investment and lack of ambition shown by our owners in the JTW. If they can’t show ambition after the start we had they never will. They are fkin useless.
 



It didn't "go wrong". We had previously been in the 3rd tier for 6 years. Survival was the brief this season, and any of us would have taken 21st place at the start of the season. A top half finish was unthinkable in August.

But we did way better than that. We stormed to the top of the league in our first season back, and only dropped out of the top 6 a few weeks ago. We secured survival around new year, got the biggest win against Them Lot in a generation, stuffed Dirty Leeds twice and generally had some bloody good results, all with a squad which on paper, should be struggling against relegation.

With 5 games to go, we are a few points off top 6, and though I don't think we'll make it, the fact we're even in that situation is a brilliant result. We have overacheived significantly. Yes, it's disappointing that we haven't kept up that superb early season form. But we shouldn't let that take anything away from what Sheffield United has acheived in the last 18 months. It has been nothing short of meteoric. Nothing has gone wrong, and more importantly, a LOT has gone right.
 
Evans aside, the January business hasn’t really brought much to the table, the goalkeeper issue is alive and well, coutts is a huge loss obviously as we were flying at that point, we also have to consider burn out and the age of the forward line playing at the high tempo we do, they will definitely be feeling it.

The board infighting hasn’t helped, but maybe we’ve levelled out to where a team with aging strikers and novice championship players should really be..

The big positive is that throughout we’ve still created enough chances to win most games we’ve played this season, so there’s nowt wrong really, take your chances and it would have been a playoff season, might still be, you never know.
 
Damski said:
It didn't "go wrong". We had previously been in the 3rd tier for 6 years. Survival was the brief this season, and any of us would have taken 21st place at the start of the season. A top half finish was unthinkable in August.

But we did way better than that. We stormed to the top of the league in our first season back, and only dropped out of the top 6 a few weeks ago. We secured survival around new year, got the biggest win against Them Lot in a generation, stuffed Dirty Leeds twice and generally had some bloody good results, all with a squad which on paper, should be struggling against relegation.

With 5 games to go, we are a few points off top 6, and though I don't think we'll make it, the fact we're even in that situation is a brilliant result. We have overacheived significantly. Yes, it's disappointing that we haven't kept up that superb early season form. But we shouldn't let that take anything away from what Sheffield United has acheived in the last 18 months. It has been nothing short of meteoric. Nothing has gone wrong, and more importantly, a LOT has gone right.
Click to expand...

I find myself agreeing with this. It saves me from typing it out anyway.
 
Damski said:
It didn't "go wrong". We had previously been in the 3rd tier for 6 years. Survival was the brief this season, and any of us would have taken 21st place at the start of the season. A top half finish was unthinkable in August.

But we did way better than that. We stormed to the top of the league in our first season back, and only dropped out of the top 6 a few weeks ago. We secured survival around new year, got the biggest win against Them Lot in a generation, stuffed Dirty Leeds twice and generally had some bloody good results, all with a squad which on paper, should be struggling against relegation.

With 5 games to go, we are a few points off top 6, and though I don't think we'll make it, the fact we're even in that situation is a brilliant result. We have overacheived significantly. Yes, it's disappointing that we haven't kept up that superb early season form. But we shouldn't let that take anything away from what Sheffield United has acheived in the last 18 months. It has been nothing short of meteoric. Nothing has gone wrong, and more importantly, a LOT has gone right.
Click to expand...
Spot on...but a lot of people want it all want it now...just how life is these days unfortunately
 
Liverpool blade said:
All of the above!!.
I hope McCabe and the prince are happy now!!.
Their boardroom squabbling has put a spanner in the works of our season!!!.
A message to the board from all blades!!!!. SORT IT OUT NOW. UTB
Click to expand...

We were top in November. The ‘squabbling’ (has anyone even got proof that’s happened yet? I keep asking but nobody has yet answered) didn’t happen until February.
 
Damski said:
It didn't "go wrong". We had previously been in the 3rd tier for 6 years. Survival was the brief this season, and any of us would have taken 21st place at the start of the season. A top half finish was unthinkable in August.

But we did way better than that. We stormed to the top of the league in our first season back, and only dropped out of the top 6 a few weeks ago. We secured survival around new year, got the biggest win against Them Lot in a generation, stuffed Dirty Leeds twice and generally had some bloody good results, all with a squad which on paper, should be struggling against relegation.

With 5 games to go, we are a few points off top 6, and though I don't think we'll make it, the fact we're even in that situation is a brilliant result. We have overacheived significantly. Yes, it's disappointing that we haven't kept up that superb early season form. But we shouldn't let that take anything away from what Sheffield United has acheived in the last 18 months. It has been nothing short of meteoric. Nothing has gone wrong, and more importantly, a LOT has gone right.
Click to expand...

This is the best post I’ve read on here in quite a while
 
Damski said:
It didn't "go wrong". We had previously been in the 3rd tier for 6 years. Survival was the brief this season, and any of us would have taken 21st place at the start of the season. A top half finish was unthinkable in August.

But we did way better than that. We stormed to the top of the league in our first season back, and only dropped out of the top 6 a few weeks ago. We secured survival around new year, got the biggest win against Them Lot in a generation, stuffed Dirty Leeds twice and generally had some bloody good results, all with a squad which on paper, should be struggling against relegation.

With 5 games to go, we are a few points off top 6, and though I don't think we'll make it, the fact we're even in that situation is a brilliant result. We have overacheived significantly. Yes, it's disappointing that we haven't kept up that superb early season form. But we shouldn't let that take anything away from what Sheffield United has acheived in the last 18 months. It has been nothing short of meteoric. Nothing has gone wrong, and more importantly, a LOT has gone right.
Click to expand...

 
I think we took a lot of sides by surprise at the start of the season, I think most teams took us much more seriously a few months in, coupled with Coutts injury, we've got sussed out a bit.

I like that CW wants his team to go for it but that shouldn't be used an excuse when we concede soft goals and at times are poor defensively. We have a captain and vice captain (Clarke gets the armband when Sharp's not on the field) who are both strikers, to me that says a lot about the players behind them. We want a strong, mentally and physically, rock solid imposing leader at the heart of the defence (a Chris Morgan type). That allows Basham and O'Connell more cover if they're bombing forward (I don't think Stearman is that type and Jake Wright is perhaps out of his depth at this level). I'd also like an anchor / leader in midfield too, someone with bite who just sits in there winning their tackles, providing cover in front of the three centre halves (especially with Basham and O'Connell bombing forward), Leonard might be that type of player (in years to come perhaps even Slater). I think our defensive play in the midfield is quite poor and we do struggle to close down in that area in front of the defence.

I'd also question CWs acquisitions in the JTW, did we really need 3 more midfield players to the four already at the club (plus Coutts when he comes back), when we lost one of the centre halves (Carter Vickers).

I don't think we're that far off, we've lost a lot of games by 1 goal, if we'd have tightened up defensively then many of those could have been turned into draws and a few of the draws might have ended up as wins. An imposing leader centre half and defensive midfield player to the current squad and we'd have a better shout for top 6 or even top 2.
 
Depth of squad for me.

It seems with the exception of JOC and Baldock we've had to deal with the loss (some longer than others) of every influential player we have at some point.

I know, the pigs say the say but our holy trinity (Coutts, Fleck and Duffy) have hardly played together at all, and with a squad as shallow as ours dropping down the table was inevitable.

You need luck in a season with suspensions and injuries, even the best teams in the world can't lose 2 or 3 of their best players.
 
We should have spent £ 50 million at the beginning of the season if we had ambition.

Maybe we should all agree to pay £ 2K each for our season tickets to help fund this ?? as we are all agreed it is such a sound investment.


Then we could have been as MASSIVE as S6.


At the start of the season we expected to be in the bottom 10 not the top 10.

We have seen some of the best Blades football ever this season, yet it is not good enough for some.
 
Tom Bott said:
We should have spent £ 50 million at the beginning of the season if we had ambition.

Maybe we should all agree to pay £ 2K each for our season tickets to help fund this ?? as we are all agreed it is such a sound investment.


Then we could have been as MASSIVE as S6.


At the start of the season we expected to be in the bottom 10 not the top 10.
Click to expand...

images
 



Bruce Wayne said:
Top in November, smashed pigs, beat Wolves and playing wonderful attacking football. So what happened?

Coutts injury?

Poor Jan transfer window?

Bad luck??

Was in a false position?
Click to expand...

We have been punching above our weight.
We have done far better and will finish far higher than i ever thought we would.
Unfortunately because we have been punching above our weight it now feels disappointing that we look like missing out on the play offs.
Next season will be even tougher and could be a real let down compared to this season.
We need at least 5 quality signings which will cost big money, and i think we all know deep down we won't have.
 
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