pommpey
THE FUTURE ... AS IT USED TO BE
- Banned
- #1
A pretty typical - these days - surrender of anything from a game there to win today. It's typical because we waver from some pretty acceptable approach play with dismal finishing to abject, headless chicken panic within the same forty five minutes of play. Opposition teams have us sussed. Said this for weeks, if not months now. It's a patient, if not predictable pattern, press, deny, press, deny ... stop us scoring ... wait for us to lose the bubble and then we are behind ... then manage the game out whilst Slav moves the deckchairs round on the Titanic. It's been happening for months this. Since lockdown ended we were sussed, last season we were simply slapped to one side and this season even teams like Blackpool ... newly promoted Blackpool ... come to Bramall Lane to feed off Wilder's rotting corpse. Vincent Price cackle
Slav is left with a dilemma here, and it's in HRHs gift to solve it. We clearly have a team now stuffed with yesterday's men, and of those it is also clear we were fortunate to witness them get away with a rare and possibly flukey circumstance of United climbing the league and finishing ninth in the top flight. It's hard stuff to swallow, but there you go. Players across the squad still playing for us who were part of that rise are a mere tenth of what they were now and that is evident in the simple inability to gain anything from on-pitch attacking development, midfield effectiveness and defensive vulnerability. If it weren't for Ndaiye and Gibbs-White, we'd possibly be bottom now. The playing staff outside these two resemble something from the dark days of Adkins or Clough and if you cast your minds back far enough, you'll recall we were tuning in to be relieved we'd come away from Oldham with a draw and were being beaten at home to Peterborough, Wigan and Burton. Now we are simply giving games away with four fifths of the team who last season could call themselves 'Premiership footballers'. I have no idea what to call them these days, because it aint even 'Championship'.
Gage said in the dull commentary 'it's the best Sheffield United play I have ever seen' with no irony in his voice, clearly forgetting we have played better than this and walloped the opposition and on balance played a lost worse and actually won games. I don't think it was anything remarkable. I think it is what was expected of two sides two divisions apart last season with the supposed higher placed club at home in front of an expectant, decent Bramall Lane crowd. But if you play Wilder's players you are gonna get Wilder's legacy ... the total disorganised ability to play in an effective back four, a defensive midfield which is simply pathetic on and off the ball, an attacking array completely at ninety degrees to the legacy squad and as usual, a sole attacker who couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. Last week we almost gave a way a three goal lead ... this week we gave the game away completely and failed to get back into it.
What needs doing? Well, I did say when Wilder went on TheSheffUtdWay that it will take time to get Wilder out of our bloodstream and unfortunately, week by week we fail the LFT to show we are still infected with him in some bizarre analogy with Long-COVID. It won't be gone either until we ship out and replace every last vestige of the WilderVirus that has in fact infected every bit of Sheffield United and refuses to shift. The antibodies are Ndaiye and MGW ... and they are struggling because the WilderVirus (WILDVID19) had mutated and now has us appearing like the useless bunch of bastards we were last season but now with added uselessness. It's hoped that the vaccine, not expected until January although expensive and difficult to manufacture, may seee us feel worse at first but the vulnerability to playing like a shower of bellends. We need also Basham back in. He is the only player capable of moving back to front with the ball at his feet and can defend better than Davies and is the only player of yesteryear yet to disgrace himself. We need Bogle back in and other significant changes too. Anything, but not more than this shit.
Olsen 5/10: Nothing spectacular. Not a chance with the goal and some pretty standard stops and blocks
Baldock 3/10: Losing the bubble and losing it quick. Great servant to the club but seemingly lost now down that right hand side both defending and attacking
Egan 4/10: Proof if ever he is not good either next to Davies or in a back four. And with that awkward fact, it is difficult to know how Slav can continue with a one dimensional, inflexible player
Davies 5/10: Marginally better than Egan but only just. He isn't the replacement for O'Connell and no one is. We seem doomed to find that.
Stevens 2/10: Really shoddy, espcially being caught so far forward for their goal and his weak chase back to marshal their player not to get a shot in. Elsewhere, piss poor
Fleck 4/10: A load of possession and involvement in patches but with the end result of nothing
Norwood 4/10: Like Fleck, pissing about more than creating and in his usual quarterback chucking it into no ones hands role
Osborn 5/10: reverted back to Mr Huff-and-Puff
MGW 6.5/10: Plenty of endeavour but in places naïve and patchy
Ndaiye 6.5/10: Better player but still with the end result of fuck all. He worked hard to make stuff happen but with no one around him on the same wavelength, how is he supposed to have any positive effect?
Mousset 4.5/10: Some flurries, but apart from the bar being hit, back to 'no-goals'. And what the fuck is wrong with his fitness?
Sharp 3/10: Ineffective
McGoldrick 3/10: Ineffective
McBurnie 3/10: Ineffective
Next game - Forest. They'll spank us.
pommpey
Slav is left with a dilemma here, and it's in HRHs gift to solve it. We clearly have a team now stuffed with yesterday's men, and of those it is also clear we were fortunate to witness them get away with a rare and possibly flukey circumstance of United climbing the league and finishing ninth in the top flight. It's hard stuff to swallow, but there you go. Players across the squad still playing for us who were part of that rise are a mere tenth of what they were now and that is evident in the simple inability to gain anything from on-pitch attacking development, midfield effectiveness and defensive vulnerability. If it weren't for Ndaiye and Gibbs-White, we'd possibly be bottom now. The playing staff outside these two resemble something from the dark days of Adkins or Clough and if you cast your minds back far enough, you'll recall we were tuning in to be relieved we'd come away from Oldham with a draw and were being beaten at home to Peterborough, Wigan and Burton. Now we are simply giving games away with four fifths of the team who last season could call themselves 'Premiership footballers'. I have no idea what to call them these days, because it aint even 'Championship'.
Gage said in the dull commentary 'it's the best Sheffield United play I have ever seen' with no irony in his voice, clearly forgetting we have played better than this and walloped the opposition and on balance played a lost worse and actually won games. I don't think it was anything remarkable. I think it is what was expected of two sides two divisions apart last season with the supposed higher placed club at home in front of an expectant, decent Bramall Lane crowd. But if you play Wilder's players you are gonna get Wilder's legacy ... the total disorganised ability to play in an effective back four, a defensive midfield which is simply pathetic on and off the ball, an attacking array completely at ninety degrees to the legacy squad and as usual, a sole attacker who couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. Last week we almost gave a way a three goal lead ... this week we gave the game away completely and failed to get back into it.
What needs doing? Well, I did say when Wilder went on TheSheffUtdWay that it will take time to get Wilder out of our bloodstream and unfortunately, week by week we fail the LFT to show we are still infected with him in some bizarre analogy with Long-COVID. It won't be gone either until we ship out and replace every last vestige of the WilderVirus that has in fact infected every bit of Sheffield United and refuses to shift. The antibodies are Ndaiye and MGW ... and they are struggling because the WilderVirus (WILDVID19) had mutated and now has us appearing like the useless bunch of bastards we were last season but now with added uselessness. It's hoped that the vaccine, not expected until January although expensive and difficult to manufacture, may seee us feel worse at first but the vulnerability to playing like a shower of bellends. We need also Basham back in. He is the only player capable of moving back to front with the ball at his feet and can defend better than Davies and is the only player of yesteryear yet to disgrace himself. We need Bogle back in and other significant changes too. Anything, but not more than this shit.
Olsen 5/10: Nothing spectacular. Not a chance with the goal and some pretty standard stops and blocks
Baldock 3/10: Losing the bubble and losing it quick. Great servant to the club but seemingly lost now down that right hand side both defending and attacking
Egan 4/10: Proof if ever he is not good either next to Davies or in a back four. And with that awkward fact, it is difficult to know how Slav can continue with a one dimensional, inflexible player
Davies 5/10: Marginally better than Egan but only just. He isn't the replacement for O'Connell and no one is. We seem doomed to find that.
Stevens 2/10: Really shoddy, espcially being caught so far forward for their goal and his weak chase back to marshal their player not to get a shot in. Elsewhere, piss poor
Fleck 4/10: A load of possession and involvement in patches but with the end result of nothing
Norwood 4/10: Like Fleck, pissing about more than creating and in his usual quarterback chucking it into no ones hands role
Osborn 5/10: reverted back to Mr Huff-and-Puff
MGW 6.5/10: Plenty of endeavour but in places naïve and patchy
Ndaiye 6.5/10: Better player but still with the end result of fuck all. He worked hard to make stuff happen but with no one around him on the same wavelength, how is he supposed to have any positive effect?
Mousset 4.5/10: Some flurries, but apart from the bar being hit, back to 'no-goals'. And what the fuck is wrong with his fitness?
Sharp 3/10: Ineffective
McGoldrick 3/10: Ineffective
McBurnie 3/10: Ineffective
Next game - Forest. They'll spank us.
pommpey