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Two more articles about us from The Times (both by Gregor Robertson). Bit long but well worth the read:
Sheffield United’s overlapping centre backs coming to a Premier League ground near you
If Sheffield United had spent the past three seasons in the Premier League their tactical innovations would have been lauded. “If I was in a bar having a coffee with friends, I would say Sheffield United’s manager is someone with new ideas and I have seen very few people with these kinds of ideas,” Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds United head coach, said in November.
The most eye-catching feature of the Blades’ approach — “front-foot football” as Chris Wilder, the manager, describes it — is their use of overlapping centre backs. United play an expansive 3-5-2 formation, with Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell, the first-choice right and left-sided centre backs, either side of John Egan.
A consistent weapon in their armoury has been Basham and O’Connell’s attacking forays, their adroit link-up play with Enda Stevens, the left wing back, and either George Baldock or Kieron Freeman at right wing back, while one of several technically gifted midfielders in United’s ranks — usually John Fleck or Oliver Norwood — covers defensively.
The tactic was first employed in 2016-17 when United, then in League One and a big fish in a small pond, faced opposition who, to coin a phrase, parked the bus — especially at Bramall Lane. “The only overload we could get was a right or left side centre back going on,” says Alan Knill, the assistant manager who, more so than Wilder in fact, is the architect of the Blades system.
The issue, initially, was defensive vulnerability, “Once they go,” Knill says. “We got done 4-1 at Walsall, and it was four counterattacks: our right side centre back crossed one of them, and they went down the other end and scored. Four times. So we adjusted it a little bit, but the positives outweigh the negatives. By letting them go — not at the same time — it drives back their best attacking players. And there’s no counterattack [threat] because their best players are defending.”
There have been long hours of work on the training ground to fine-tune the system and counteract opponents’ attempts to obstruct them — which has proved far from easy. And the stats back up how unique the approach is. This season in the Championship, O’Connell and Basham have made 1.34 and 1.56 crosses per game in open play respectively; the average for current top-six centre backs is 0.12. In the attacking third, they have made 11.79 and 13.41 passes per game respectively; a huge increase on the top-six average of 5.97. Basham, the more adventurous of the two, has attempted 49 dribbles — only 14 fewer than Stevens — at a rate of 1.37 per game; the top-six average is 0.36.
Basham has been deployed in midfield on a couple of occasions, but Martin Cranie has proved an able deputy in the system. “Bash can play anywhere on the pitch and Jack is really powerful driving forward,” Knill says. “It really suits them. It’s such a risk-and-reward way of playing. But it’s enjoyable to watch.”
When promotion from League One was sealed in 2017, Knill and Wilder analysed hours of Championship football. They concluded that most teams in the division were risk-averse in their approach.
Sound familiar? A dozen teams in the top flight could be characterised as such but, next season, do not expect Sheffield United — or their overlapping centre backs — to tame their buccaneering spirit.
Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder ready to inflict bloody noses on Premier League elite
The Journeyman visits. . . Sheffield United
There is something strangely thrilling about the prospect of the Premier League elite visiting this historic old concrete stadium nestled amid Sheffield’s seven hills on Bramall Lane next season, where the evocative ode before kick-off to their city and football club — “You fill up my senses!” — cites a gallon of Magnet ale, a packet of Woodbines, a pinch of snuff and the eponymous “greasy chip butty”.
Where, in the globalised super league in which Sheffield United will reside next season, supporters serenading “Chrissy Wilder”, the manager, as “one of our own” could scarcely chorus truer words and, where the captain, Billy Sharp, another boyhood Blade, calls himself, “that fat lad from Sheffield”.
Few teams in the country reflect their support and surroundings quite like United and harness that power to such effect. However, anyone who has watched their often swashbuckling and innovative football this season will attest that their success has been built on a lot more than that; that their success owes as much to the head as to the heart.
In truth, this season, given the — understandable — fascination with the effect of the brooding, bespectacled Argentine Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds United, and the renaissance of another unfancied club, Norwich City, under Daniel Farke, perhaps the story that has continued to gather pace at Bramall Lane has not received quite the attention it deserved.
Since Wilder became United manager in 2016, only Pep Guardiola, of any manager in England’s top four divisions, has won more points. “We’ve been together, organised, disciplined, selfless, and we’ve been bold with our approach since we’ve come into the Championship,” Wilder, 51, who was a player during United’s promotion to the top flight under Dave Bassett in 1990, said.
When the final whistle blew on Saturday’s 2-0 win against Ipswich Town, Bramall Lane shook to its core and then United’s almost certain promotion was confirmed when Leeds drew 1-1 with Aston Villa yesterday.
Not since 2006-07 have United resided among the elite, a season when Neil Warnock’s side were controversially relegated, after Carlos Tévez, subsequently found to have been illegally signed by West Ham United, scored an unlikely winner for the Hammers against Manchester United at Old Trafford to beat the drop and condemn United on the final day.
Nine permanent managers had since passed through the doors and six years were spent languishing in the third tier before the force of nature that is Wilder swept in from Northampton Town. Five years ago today, the Northampton team he managed and for whom I played, were digesting a 3-0 win away to Dagenham & Redbridge two days earlier, which lifted us out of the relegation zone for the first time in seven months. Wilder had arrived three months earlier, as had I, and we still needed to beat Oxford United on the final day to secure our league status.
His rise since has been breathtaking. Wilder, who had already won promotion from the Conference with Oxford in 2010, won League Two with Northampton in 2016, League One with United in 2017 and could well add the Championship title to that list this weekend.
He has been assisted by a small but fiercely loyal and tight-knit group of staff, whose “work away from the lights” Wilder was keen to praise on Saturday. Darren Ward, the goalkeeper coach, was inherited from Nigel Adkins, the previous manager, but his work with Dean Henderson, the Manchester United loanee, has yielded 21 clean sheets this season. Matt Prestridge, the head of sport science, followed Wilder from Northampton, as did Alan Knill, the assistant manager who has known Wilder since their youth team days at Southampton, the importance of whom cannot be overstated.
For six months in 2008 Wilder, assisted Knill, the former Rotherham United and Scunthorpe United manager, at Bury but the present dynamic — with Knill, a fine coach, taking the lead in the majority of the training ground work, and Wilder, the leader and motivator, truly coming to life on matchday — better suits both men’s skill-sets and personalities.
Knill, for whom I worked at three clubs, has a voracious appetite for the game. Often, in spare moments, he can be found sitting in the players’ dressing room with a cup of tea before or after training chewing the fat about the previous night’s televised football. And it is Knill who crafts and hones the fluid system and set-piece routines that have proved so successful.
Wilder is, of course, unashamedly old-school and the maxim that “you are only as good as your players” is one he strongly believes in. With the help of Paul Mitchell, the head of recruitment and Wilder’s friend of 20 years — who previously enjoyed success working for Paul Cook at Chesterfield and Portsmouth, both of whom won promotion from League Two — a promotion-winning squad has been assembled with a budget that is among the bottom eight clubs in the Championship.
Unusually, in an increasingly cosmopolitan division, United have a squad filled solely with players from the United Kingdom and Ireland — most of them players the staff know from their time working in the lower leagues.
In the summer the sale of David Brooks to Bournemouth for £11.5 million — about the same sum Wilder has spent at Bramall Lane in three seasons — financed the arrival of players with Championship experience, notably John Egan, the central defender, who joined from Brentford for £4 million, and Oliver Norwood, the outstanding midfield conductor for United, who joined from Brighton & Hove Albion for £2 million and has now won three consecutive promotions after ascending via the play-offs with Fulham last season.
However Saturday’s starting line-up cost a total of about £6.5 million and a core of players from League One remains. The hugely impressive left-sided defender Jack O’Connell, 25, was signed from Brentford’s B-team in 2016, as was John Fleck, 27, an industrious left-footed midfielder, from Coventry City. Mark Duffy, 33, briefly worked as a scaffolder after being released from Liverpool’s academy before finding his way into the Football League via non-League Vauxhall Motors and Prescot Cables. Signed from Birmingham City in 2016 after being shipped out on loan to Burton Albion, he now has the chance to return to face his boyhood club at Anfield.
Like the defender Chris Basham and Sharp, who have also ridden the crest of this wave, their eyes are now on proving themselves in the Premier League. David McGoldrick, 31, has 15 goals this season with the forward’s club form reviving his Ireland career.
“There are a lot of players who have grown with the club,” George Baldock, the right wing back signed from MK Dons in 2017, says. “Me and Enda [Stevens, the left wing back] signed knowing that this was a possibility — maybe not as soon as this — but it’s been one hell of a ride. I remember my first pre-season at this club, the manager talked about Bournemouth. A lot of their players started in League Two and worked their way up. He just said, ‘Listen, why not? Why can’t we do a similar thing?’ And he was right.”
“It’s a special time to be a Blade,” Wilder said. “And it strikes a blow for all those fundamental qualities that are quite easily bypassed by just signing a cheque.” And now? How many of those who have produced this minor miracle will Wilder stand by? Norwood, 28, was discarded as Fulham embarked on an ill-fated £100 million spending spree last summer. Wilder will have nothing like those riches available, and he insisted on Saturday that Norwood would finally get a chance in the top flight. But do not mistake those words for sentimentality. He can be ruthless in his relentless pursuit of success. And who would bet against some of the Premier League’s big boys leaving Bramall Lane with their noses bloodied next season?
First, though, there are celebrations to enjoy. With a few gallons of ale, no doubt, down Bramall Lane.
Sheffield United’s overlapping centre backs coming to a Premier League ground near you
If Sheffield United had spent the past three seasons in the Premier League their tactical innovations would have been lauded. “If I was in a bar having a coffee with friends, I would say Sheffield United’s manager is someone with new ideas and I have seen very few people with these kinds of ideas,” Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds United head coach, said in November.
The most eye-catching feature of the Blades’ approach — “front-foot football” as Chris Wilder, the manager, describes it — is their use of overlapping centre backs. United play an expansive 3-5-2 formation, with Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell, the first-choice right and left-sided centre backs, either side of John Egan.
A consistent weapon in their armoury has been Basham and O’Connell’s attacking forays, their adroit link-up play with Enda Stevens, the left wing back, and either George Baldock or Kieron Freeman at right wing back, while one of several technically gifted midfielders in United’s ranks — usually John Fleck or Oliver Norwood — covers defensively.
The tactic was first employed in 2016-17 when United, then in League One and a big fish in a small pond, faced opposition who, to coin a phrase, parked the bus — especially at Bramall Lane. “The only overload we could get was a right or left side centre back going on,” says Alan Knill, the assistant manager who, more so than Wilder in fact, is the architect of the Blades system.
The issue, initially, was defensive vulnerability, “Once they go,” Knill says. “We got done 4-1 at Walsall, and it was four counterattacks: our right side centre back crossed one of them, and they went down the other end and scored. Four times. So we adjusted it a little bit, but the positives outweigh the negatives. By letting them go — not at the same time — it drives back their best attacking players. And there’s no counterattack [threat] because their best players are defending.”
There have been long hours of work on the training ground to fine-tune the system and counteract opponents’ attempts to obstruct them — which has proved far from easy. And the stats back up how unique the approach is. This season in the Championship, O’Connell and Basham have made 1.34 and 1.56 crosses per game in open play respectively; the average for current top-six centre backs is 0.12. In the attacking third, they have made 11.79 and 13.41 passes per game respectively; a huge increase on the top-six average of 5.97. Basham, the more adventurous of the two, has attempted 49 dribbles — only 14 fewer than Stevens — at a rate of 1.37 per game; the top-six average is 0.36.
Basham has been deployed in midfield on a couple of occasions, but Martin Cranie has proved an able deputy in the system. “Bash can play anywhere on the pitch and Jack is really powerful driving forward,” Knill says. “It really suits them. It’s such a risk-and-reward way of playing. But it’s enjoyable to watch.”
When promotion from League One was sealed in 2017, Knill and Wilder analysed hours of Championship football. They concluded that most teams in the division were risk-averse in their approach.
Sound familiar? A dozen teams in the top flight could be characterised as such but, next season, do not expect Sheffield United — or their overlapping centre backs — to tame their buccaneering spirit.
Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder ready to inflict bloody noses on Premier League elite
The Journeyman visits. . . Sheffield United
There is something strangely thrilling about the prospect of the Premier League elite visiting this historic old concrete stadium nestled amid Sheffield’s seven hills on Bramall Lane next season, where the evocative ode before kick-off to their city and football club — “You fill up my senses!” — cites a gallon of Magnet ale, a packet of Woodbines, a pinch of snuff and the eponymous “greasy chip butty”.
Where, in the globalised super league in which Sheffield United will reside next season, supporters serenading “Chrissy Wilder”, the manager, as “one of our own” could scarcely chorus truer words and, where the captain, Billy Sharp, another boyhood Blade, calls himself, “that fat lad from Sheffield”.
Few teams in the country reflect their support and surroundings quite like United and harness that power to such effect. However, anyone who has watched their often swashbuckling and innovative football this season will attest that their success has been built on a lot more than that; that their success owes as much to the head as to the heart.
In truth, this season, given the — understandable — fascination with the effect of the brooding, bespectacled Argentine Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds United, and the renaissance of another unfancied club, Norwich City, under Daniel Farke, perhaps the story that has continued to gather pace at Bramall Lane has not received quite the attention it deserved.
Since Wilder became United manager in 2016, only Pep Guardiola, of any manager in England’s top four divisions, has won more points. “We’ve been together, organised, disciplined, selfless, and we’ve been bold with our approach since we’ve come into the Championship,” Wilder, 51, who was a player during United’s promotion to the top flight under Dave Bassett in 1990, said.
When the final whistle blew on Saturday’s 2-0 win against Ipswich Town, Bramall Lane shook to its core and then United’s almost certain promotion was confirmed when Leeds drew 1-1 with Aston Villa yesterday.
Not since 2006-07 have United resided among the elite, a season when Neil Warnock’s side were controversially relegated, after Carlos Tévez, subsequently found to have been illegally signed by West Ham United, scored an unlikely winner for the Hammers against Manchester United at Old Trafford to beat the drop and condemn United on the final day.
Nine permanent managers had since passed through the doors and six years were spent languishing in the third tier before the force of nature that is Wilder swept in from Northampton Town. Five years ago today, the Northampton team he managed and for whom I played, were digesting a 3-0 win away to Dagenham & Redbridge two days earlier, which lifted us out of the relegation zone for the first time in seven months. Wilder had arrived three months earlier, as had I, and we still needed to beat Oxford United on the final day to secure our league status.
His rise since has been breathtaking. Wilder, who had already won promotion from the Conference with Oxford in 2010, won League Two with Northampton in 2016, League One with United in 2017 and could well add the Championship title to that list this weekend.
He has been assisted by a small but fiercely loyal and tight-knit group of staff, whose “work away from the lights” Wilder was keen to praise on Saturday. Darren Ward, the goalkeeper coach, was inherited from Nigel Adkins, the previous manager, but his work with Dean Henderson, the Manchester United loanee, has yielded 21 clean sheets this season. Matt Prestridge, the head of sport science, followed Wilder from Northampton, as did Alan Knill, the assistant manager who has known Wilder since their youth team days at Southampton, the importance of whom cannot be overstated.
For six months in 2008 Wilder, assisted Knill, the former Rotherham United and Scunthorpe United manager, at Bury but the present dynamic — with Knill, a fine coach, taking the lead in the majority of the training ground work, and Wilder, the leader and motivator, truly coming to life on matchday — better suits both men’s skill-sets and personalities.
Knill, for whom I worked at three clubs, has a voracious appetite for the game. Often, in spare moments, he can be found sitting in the players’ dressing room with a cup of tea before or after training chewing the fat about the previous night’s televised football. And it is Knill who crafts and hones the fluid system and set-piece routines that have proved so successful.
Wilder is, of course, unashamedly old-school and the maxim that “you are only as good as your players” is one he strongly believes in. With the help of Paul Mitchell, the head of recruitment and Wilder’s friend of 20 years — who previously enjoyed success working for Paul Cook at Chesterfield and Portsmouth, both of whom won promotion from League Two — a promotion-winning squad has been assembled with a budget that is among the bottom eight clubs in the Championship.
Unusually, in an increasingly cosmopolitan division, United have a squad filled solely with players from the United Kingdom and Ireland — most of them players the staff know from their time working in the lower leagues.
In the summer the sale of David Brooks to Bournemouth for £11.5 million — about the same sum Wilder has spent at Bramall Lane in three seasons — financed the arrival of players with Championship experience, notably John Egan, the central defender, who joined from Brentford for £4 million, and Oliver Norwood, the outstanding midfield conductor for United, who joined from Brighton & Hove Albion for £2 million and has now won three consecutive promotions after ascending via the play-offs with Fulham last season.
However Saturday’s starting line-up cost a total of about £6.5 million and a core of players from League One remains. The hugely impressive left-sided defender Jack O’Connell, 25, was signed from Brentford’s B-team in 2016, as was John Fleck, 27, an industrious left-footed midfielder, from Coventry City. Mark Duffy, 33, briefly worked as a scaffolder after being released from Liverpool’s academy before finding his way into the Football League via non-League Vauxhall Motors and Prescot Cables. Signed from Birmingham City in 2016 after being shipped out on loan to Burton Albion, he now has the chance to return to face his boyhood club at Anfield.
Like the defender Chris Basham and Sharp, who have also ridden the crest of this wave, their eyes are now on proving themselves in the Premier League. David McGoldrick, 31, has 15 goals this season with the forward’s club form reviving his Ireland career.
“There are a lot of players who have grown with the club,” George Baldock, the right wing back signed from MK Dons in 2017, says. “Me and Enda [Stevens, the left wing back] signed knowing that this was a possibility — maybe not as soon as this — but it’s been one hell of a ride. I remember my first pre-season at this club, the manager talked about Bournemouth. A lot of their players started in League Two and worked their way up. He just said, ‘Listen, why not? Why can’t we do a similar thing?’ And he was right.”
“It’s a special time to be a Blade,” Wilder said. “And it strikes a blow for all those fundamental qualities that are quite easily bypassed by just signing a cheque.” And now? How many of those who have produced this minor miracle will Wilder stand by? Norwood, 28, was discarded as Fulham embarked on an ill-fated £100 million spending spree last summer. Wilder will have nothing like those riches available, and he insisted on Saturday that Norwood would finally get a chance in the top flight. But do not mistake those words for sentimentality. He can be ruthless in his relentless pursuit of success. And who would bet against some of the Premier League’s big boys leaving Bramall Lane with their noses bloodied next season?
First, though, there are celebrations to enjoy. With a few gallons of ale, no doubt, down Bramall Lane.
