A fickle thing are the affections of football supporters.
It's certainly been a massive let down after the unexpected success of the previous season. Trouble is, there was never a better time for the club to invest in quality players, the type of player whose calibre, whilst not unquestioned, might have been worth investing in, an example being Cash or Watkins at Villa. I recall we were interested in the players, but our reluctance to pay relatively higher wages was always going to be our downfall. I mean, who'd go to a club that wouldn't offer a wage that was comparable with most mid-table Prem clubs? I appreciate that there has to be a line drawn that says we'll go so far but no further financially, but that begs the question, what was the point of getting to the Premiership if we weren't serious about competing?
So we were left with putting our manager out to dry. The resources offered by our board were, by Prem standards, miserly in comparison. Yes, we bought players at the £20 mil mark, one, Berge, a qualified class act when the mood seemed to take him, the other, Brewster, we seemed to get giddy at the fact that we were buying a Liverpool player. Whatever the reasons that support Brewster's purchase, so far I think it's reasonable to describe his impact as underwhelming. And that just about describes our season, one where very early on, it seemed fair to say we were going under, like a drowning man without the faintest hope of help being offered.
Perspective is needed, we are a club that has little or no aspiration, let alone ambition. It's always been the case, we seem to accept the role of being footballing versions of lambs to the slaughter. We have the barely wealthy owner, a Saudi whose wealth was never going to be enough to make our time in the Prem an exciting affair. Maybe next season we'll achieve promotion, maybe we won't, but I'll support the team no matter what. I just wish we had a better level of financial support to enable our manager to strengthen on terms that we could all recognise as worthy of a club who were serious about being a Prem club.
Don't hold your breath fellow Blades, there are no givens in football. Talk of walking the Championship is beyond misguided. Next season will be the time to strengthen with the addition of quality talent, sadly I've a feeling that hope will be squashed by our board as we add players who aren't even established first team players with their current clubs.