Wilder OUT - megathread

[The Crab]

That was a moment of panic and an attempt to quell the unrest.

I think we're at a level of unrest towards them now where they need things to work on the pitch - and they clearly aren't

I hope they are better in their actual businesses than they are with us.

Because if I’m being honest I think they are quite shit at this football thing…

 

[Grey Blade]

I think because Tuesday was 2nd string and not something we really care about - we're never gonna win the cup

To be so disappointing in the league is another thing altogether

Yes. I agree noone is all that bothered about the league cup but walking out of Ewood Park on Tuesday there was a sense of feelgood in the atmosphere.

 

[Surrey Blade]

Two lengthy trips to South Wales in a week was an unfortunate quirk of the fixture list.

 

[NerdyBlade]

Yes. I agree noone is all that bothered about the league cup but walking out of Ewood Park on Tuesday there was a sense of feelgood in the atmosphere.

Funny how quickly they manage to stamp it out

 

[Carlton Blade]

Yep, I won’t deny it is. I said as much on the shoutbox during the game….but it’s a point gained

We lack creativity badly and we clearly don’t have the money you need to sign those types of players unfortunately.

I think Wilder knows that & he’s gone for the tough to beat route.

Hopefully we can express ourselves a bit more at home. Still undefeated, reasons to be positive

I'm not sure 28 shots against, with 21 from inside the box equates to hard to beat. Today was a bit of a disaster of a performance, but stole a point. That's fine, as long as we don't go back to beliving that unsustainable defensive results can be maintained through finger crossing.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

Considering the chanting and mood in the support today in the away end, I'd argue the actual match attending fans and those on here may diverge somewhat....

 

[ATL Recs]

Yep, I won’t deny it is. I said as much on the shoutbox during the game….but it’s a point gained

We lack creativity badly and we clearly don’t have the money you need to sign those types of players unfortunately.

I think Wilder knows that & he’s gone for the tough to beat route.

Hopefully we can express ourselves a bit more at home. Still undefeated, reasons to be positive

Tbh that wasn’t tough to beat mode it was shambolic got lucky and a good Keeper mode
We looked again shockingly poor and a 5-2 loss would have been a reflective result
I’ve watched Lincoln twice ( divisions whipping boys) and they are better with the ball and without it have more pace and tons of pashun

 

[Designer Blade]

I genuinely don't think getting rid of Wilder is the right move for the club right now.

We won't go down with him, he is the kind of manager you need for times like these, we will have an ok season.

But, I am finding his stubbornness at not admitting to his own tactical faults and always blaming players increasingly grating. Recent interviews he has been quite argumentative and snappy with reporters asking basic questions, it's kinda childish.

 

[Silky Sabella]

Don't worry, the new owners will get rid of wilder

 

[sheepbridge]

Oh it's laughable. We're 3 games it's too early to go off like this.

Comfortably top 8. Who are you actually kidding here? So obvious as soon as the season started you'd pretend we had a brilliant squad.

West Ham, Wolves, Millwall, Burnley, Southampton, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Wrexham are 8 teams who are obviously better than us right now. Comfortably top 8 is wildly optimistic and I think the vast majority of fans would agree.

Absolutely, which just shows just how badly our club has been managed on and off the field in the past few years.
Just a few years after being in the Premier League we are now comparing ourselves to teams in the lower half of the Championship, hoping we have enough to finish above them and outside the relegation zone.

We've literally had hundreds of millions from the Premier League and also parachute payments, and have virtually nothing to show for it.

We've spent around £50m on poor strikers alone with £0 return when they left.
We've made players, other clubs, agents and managers very rich, and yet here we are, scrabbling for a point against a newly promoted side and reduced to signing free transfers and loans, seemingly mainly ones we've had before and with little to no resale value.

In that time, we have had a succession of poor transfer windows, a few very good loan players who we were unable to keep and who moved to other clubs to further their career, and a succession of very poor loan signings.

The one redeeming feature has been the success of the academy, which is a good job because the money from Osula, Brooks, DCL etc. has helped the finances massively, but we have lost a lot of talent and again really have very little to show for it apart from the occassional sell-on clause when they get sold for more money.

This isn't helped by a lot of players who seem to refuse contract extensions and so are being sold before their contract expires.

We're not the first club to be in this mess, many others have as well, and it's taken most of them a long time to recover, sometimes going in to League 1 or even 2.

I do actually think we still have some good players who can on their day make a decent 11, but these will leave and at present our buying policy is not replacing them with similar or better quality, we're not even trying to do that.

Hopefully the future isn't as bleak as it looks at present, and personally after supporting this club for over 50 years I've seen far worse times, players, managers and owners, but I don't have much faith that this will be fixed any time soon.
The best we can hope for is to become a generic mid-table Championship team, that might get lucky and get to the playoffs, not that anyone would call that lucky with our record.

 

[NerdyBlade]

Don't worry, the new owners will get rid of wilder

I'm not sure what's worse, the AI picture used or the AI information you're just repeating

 

[Steve.C]

Fuck that get rid next one get rid n
Until we get a good one. It’s gone stale move on

 

[Macfarlane21]

Wilder has been dealt an awful hand this season. It appears he was initially told we would have funds to rebuild the squad in May, then that we had the funds for a key player, only to be told we have no funds and to focus on frees and loans. To top it off, we may be looking at a large points deduction, which could affect players’ desire to sign for us. He’s the man for the job as things stand, as no one will work in the best interests of the club like him under the current circumstances.

 

[dc_blade]

You don’t sack a manager when you’re unbeaten after five games. You also don’t sack him when he’s the kind of leader you need in a tough situation, and when he has enough credit in the bank with fans to keep the club (relatively) united in said tough situation.

No more turd-polishing though, please. We were abysmal today and we’ve been awful to watch under Wilder for ages. Given the amount of power he has at the club he has to take a big share of the blame for our embarrassing, backward-looking recruitment strategy for the last few years.

He’s the right guy for a season of struggle but not for a club that aspires to more than that.

 

[blades_95]

He’s been shafted by the board, but he’s also not helping himself with the recruitment & complete lack of tactical nous. Both of these things can be true.

It’s going to be a long old season.

 

[HIBGIA]

Wilder 2026, got to be out (after the signings this season so far and the current displays).

 

[ATL Recs]

Wilder has been dealt an awful hand this season. It appears he was initially told we would have funds to rebuild the squad in May, then that we had the funds for a key player, only to be told we have no funds and to focus on frees and loans. To top it off, we may be looking at a large points deduction, which could affect players’ desire to sign for us. He’s the man for the job as things stand, as no one will work in the best interests of the club like him under the current circumstances.

Sadly he has too much power and too much

Sadly we reluctantly accept he’s most likely the only option now to keeping us afloat

Sadly this is due to our owners who after the play off final did the right thing but then completely screwed it up

Sadly we were in a strong position to change direction and they give the job to a bloke that everyone, not just Blades, knew was shyte

Sadly we are a laughing stock with other clubs who take the piss at our expense

 

[Barnette]

Wilder is slowly strangling the life out of our club. And he's allowed to do it by incompetent owners who dont give a sh@#t about anything other than money.

Our recruitment and playing style this summer is laughable. But hey we need to stay in the Championship for financial reasons.

No consideration for the fans at all...we really dont matter any more. Pay up and watch this turgid cra@#p.

Really we should vote with our feet....but we wont. Thats the beauty and bonkersness of football

 

[SUFCinks]

I still think Wilder is comfortably our biggest problem.

We are consistently one of the worst footballing teams to watch, despite him having had some of the biggest budgets available to a Sheffield United manager. He was negative when he had money and better players, and somehow the football has become even worse as the squad has declined.

What actually is the game plan? Park the bus, launch it into the channels, roll your sleeves up and get stuck in? That seems to be about the extent of it. It’s park football being played by people earning vast sums of money, while the value and technical quality of the squad gets progressively worse.

I constantly hear “he needs a season”. He’s had fucking loads of time across his spells here. This isn’t some manager who arrived six weeks ago. We know exactly what his football looks like, and apart from that brilliant first spell, it has progressively become more negative, more basic and more shite.

Even with a depleted squad, we still have players like K. Phillips, Seriki, Riedewald and Bamford who should have enough quality for this level, yet he seems incapable of getting a functioning football team out of them. We regularly look unable to string five passes together. Everything is smashed long, chased into channels and built around second balls rather than actually controlling a game.

His recruitment philosophy compounds the problem. Familiar players, English players, players who work hard, “good lads”, players who will get stuck in. Effort matters, obviously, but where is the emphasis on technique, intelligence, creativity and players comfortable on the ball? We’ve ended up with a squad desperately short of technical quality because the entire philosophy seems built around graft first and football second.

And the familiarity our fanbase has with Wilder because he’s local and “gets the club” has become a massive blind spot. If another manager was serving up this football without the Sheffield United connection, I genuinely don’t think people would tolerate it.

He can steady a ship. Fine. But he cannot be the man responsible for building the next one.

The longer he stays, the further backwards I think we go. Keep accepting this as the blueprint and I honestly think he takes us to League One.

Any manager who plays and starts as many CDMs as Wilder should be a red flag. Fuck!

Edit:
One more thing, how many times do we sell a player and they instantly look better somewhere else?

Same player, same ability. The main difference is they’re playing under a different manager, in a different system, with a different style of football. Our fans have constantly blamed the players first and said they simply weren’t good enough. But when you look at where a lot of those players are now, plenty of them are playing Premier League football.

At some point it becomes pretty obvious the problem was somewhere else. It feels like a lot of them were playing with no plan, direction or too many restriction on, they leave and suddenly look like good footballers.

 

[Keen Blade]

Considering the chanting and mood in the support today in the away end, I'd argue the actual match attending fans and those on here may diverge somewhat....

Not sure what you mean.
The ridiculous HT changes stunned us into silence apart from expressions of disgust.
Sitting back at 2-2 with 8 slow defensively minded players was pathetic.
No plan or ability to move the ball up the pitch other than aerial hoof to little CoH was comically bad.
Other than chanting "We're shit" , the only way to express disappointment was to call for BBD , to which Wilder eventually reacted , but the fact was the selections and substitutions had already ruined our game.

 

[Kozzy_is_my_Dad]

Wilder 2026, got to be out (after the signings this season so far and the current displays).

With what money?
And what match winning quality?!

 

[Blades1971]

I genuinely don't think getting rid of Wilder is the right move for the club right now.

We won't go down with him, he is the kind of manager you need for times like these, we will have an ok season.

But, I am finding his stubbornness at not admitting to his own tactical faults and always blaming players increasingly grating. Recent interviews he has been quite argumentative and snappy with reporters asking basic questions, it's kinda childish.

I agree. We need him at the moment. We don't necessarily want him. Two different things

 

[CPB]

This time last year we had lost all three and looked dreadful in all departments.

This year with a squad which has lost some quality with sales we have drawn our opening 3.

I'm not saying that's amazing. But it's better than last season's start.

It's really early in any season when it's 3 games in.

 

[Kona]

You don’t sack a manager when you’re unbeaten after five games. You also don’t sack him when he’s the kind of leader you need in a tough situation, and when he has enough credit in the bank with fans to keep the club (relatively) united in said tough situation.

No more turd-polishing though, please. We were abysmal today and we’ve been awful to watch under Wilder for ages. Given the amount of power he has at the club he has to take a big share of the blame for our embarrassing, backward-looking recruitment strategy for the last few years.

He’s the right guy for a season of struggle but not for a club that aspires to more than that.

Exactly this!

 

[ekke287]

Wilder has been dealt an awful hand this season. It appears he was initially told we would have funds to rebuild the squad in May, then that we had the funds for a key player, only to be told we have no funds and to focus on frees and loans. To top it off, we may be looking at a large points deduction, which could affect players’ desire to sign for us. He’s the man for the job as things stand, as no one will work in the best interests of the club like him under the current circumstances.

He’s been shafted by the board, but he’s also not helping himself with the recruitment & complete lack of tactical nous. Both of these things can be true.

It’s going to be a long old season.

He’s not been dealt and awful hand or been shafted by the board, he’s just signed a new contract knowing that what he asks for he’ll get as he’s convinced the owners that he knows best.

They’ve backed him for the long term and put funds in to stupid bids for the likes of Souttar and wages on Phillips, when the fan base can see red flags on both of these options.

We have about a million defensive midfielders now, but they seemingly don’t work together, and we’re still light in defence. On another day Cardiff put all their chances away and it’s an embarrassment of a scoreline.

All this nonsense about money in the bank and the best man for the job can go for me. The warning signs of a lack of tactical nous or ability to change a game have been there since the end of the 24/25 season when we threw away what was (in my opinion) our strongest chance at winning a play off.

He had all of last season bar six games and the style of football was the same. These awful players that seem to be the fallback excuse aren’t even playing now, they’ve been replaced by his signings and favourites.

Peck, can’t do anything wrong and is undroppable. Rothwell, none existent. Bamford, underused. Cannon, overused ineffectively.

He has multiple scapegoats for some on here but the inescapable truth is he remains the one constant through our poor displays and lack of tactics.

If he is the man for the job to get us fighting then I’d suggest he starts showing some signs of that on the pitch, as to my eyes it’s the same as last season, if not worse.

 

[Brownieblade]

Wilder has been dealt an awful hand this season. It appears he was initially told we would have funds to rebuild the squad in May, then that we had the funds for a key player, only to be told we have no funds and to focus on frees and loans. To top it off, we may be looking at a large points deduction, which could affect players’ desire to sign for us. He’s the man for the job as things stand, as no one will work in the best interests of the club like him under the current circumstances.

Maybe him not being given the funds might be a good thing long term

Have said this in shoutbox, I’m not saying sack him right now, but this only he can do it ??,

If the owners did make a move and told any candidates that they wouldn’t have any funds and would have to rely on frees or maybe loans in Jan if spots are still left etc etc, then any new manager coming in will work to try and at least stay in division and try and win and not lose

 

[Champagneblade]

Wilder threw away any chance of 3 points today by his appalling defensive minded decisions at HT.
He wants us to defend for 45 minutes ?
Stubborn mardy twat.
Absolutely no plan or personnel to move the ball forward on the front door.
CoH as a CF ????
Cannon as a false 9 who drifts to the RW.
Not a single MF who brings or passes the ball forward.
We were so lucky to get a point.
If Cardiff could shoot straight we couldn't have complained at losing 5-2.
Away end went quiet - no one around me could understand what Wilder had done.
Then with hardly any time left he brings on BBD - why didn't BBD replace Bamford at HT ?
Why not play a RB instead of Baptiste who was clueless at RB and was NEVER stopping their LW attacks in first half.
Utter tripe Wilder.
Are you trying to send some sort of coded message to the owners ?
Forget that - try and pick a team which makes sense - make subs that make sense.
Just do the obvious stuff or feck off.

His subs on this occasion seemed logical to me to be quite honest. I’m not saying they turned the game but made sense at the time.

I thought first off the selection was wrong. McGuinness and Baptiste had just played 90 together at Blackburn in a good away win and a good away performance conceding only a worldy. I can appreciate the desire to restore Tanganga there but given the absence of , and Tanganga having played 22 times at right back for Spurs, he should have started there and it would have killed most of their offense down that side. Baptiste is 1.91m and McGuinness 1.94m, they were more qualified than Japh, at 1.84m, to deal with their big lump up front anyway.

I also thought 4-4-2 is too open to play away from home but with BBD only just arrived, Oné and Chong injured, not easy to fashion a proper 4-2-3-1 this week.

It took the first half and then uncharacteristically he made two changes as early as half time.

He switched to 3-5-1-1. In came Shackleton at RWB where he probably thought it would ask too much of Donovan defensively and in came Phillips for Bamford who, assist aside, had drifted out of the game. I understood this. Could Doherty have come in? Maybe or perhaps wing back is asking a lot of a 34 year old building up match action?

As the game went on he brought on Riedewald to give us more solidity given Rothwell’s passing game was off anyway. He then decided to give the defence more natural balance and brought on Norrington-Davies on the left hoping that would add a player who could carry the ball forward, and on a few occasions he did.

With Cannon ploughing a lone furrow, it was only a matter of time until her introduced Brereton-Diaz.

Now it doesn’t explain why we kept turning the ball over through unforced errors and one of our most popular players, O’Hare, did that frequently, but I sidnt sit there thinking “why’s he done that?”.

That’s just my 2 cents anyway.

 

[Kona]

As much as I would like to see a change in direction, not just the manager, doing it now doesn’t make sense.

Yes the performances in the league have been poor and worryingly similar to what we had to endure last season, but…

We’re only 5 games into the season (we’ve looked good at times in the cup games), and there are further additions expected this week which should improve the squad and style of play (fingers crossed).

Want him or not, Wilder cares about this club and will rally the players enough to be hard to beat - I know that isn’t what we’re aiming for but it does offer some protection right now.

Also, with no money seemingly available, are we really likely to attract anyone of any quality or anyone who could get a tune out the type of squad just assembled?

Personally, I think not. Unless there is a significant down turn in results, I’d wait and review the situation at Christmas.

The ideal scenario is that COH are actively looking to sell the club or are at least working on getting in new investors with actual funds they are willing spend and appointing someone who knows football to advise them. Because without this, I cannot see us making any real progress.

 

[Ecco1889]

That’s why 1500-2000 season ticket holders didn’t renew,it’s an awful watch getting overrun in midfield and making our opponents look like Barcelona at times.
Too many times we hear opposition managers say that’s the best we’ve played all season when they play us…and nothing changes.
Tbf,it’s a great point v Cardiff but we won’t get away with that week in,week out if we carry on in the same manner

 

[HOT CURRIE 10]

Haven't taken any notice of this thread until today. I see it was very quiet after Tuesday night's win

Have you not been tuning in since last season then. Tuesday was a free hit with both sides mix and matching,unfortunately the Carabao is not important until the latter stages and no one cares too much. Serious question,are you happy with the football,tactics,signings,style,non identity, ? I spent £120 going to Cardiff yesterday,people are seeing it with their feet over the last couple of weeks and not happy.