“Sheffield United - a class apart

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To be fair to Brown he was implying momentum isn't everything . He mentioned millwall and Bolton as they too had the momentum of going up last season but have failed to match our start ,ergo we must be a better team. I am over joyed we have kept the momentum of winning 3 points as that's the ideal situation. I trust this momentum of winning lasts till May
 



This Sheffield United team remind's me a lot of coppels reading that stormed the championship and did well in the prem

A lot of similarities,I used to watch their simple but effective easy on the eye football and think why can't we play like that

Even though we were doing quite well ourselves
 
Sparky said:
What exactly IS this so called momentum? It’s not like we’re a three ton ball being shoved down a hill. We’re a football team. One that lost a couple of games near the start of the season. So if it is down to “momentum” from last season how come it didn’t stop then? Good players, good manager, fantastic tactics, great support, self belief and a never say die attitude is what it’s about.
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Well said sparky.
In my opinion the 6 elements you have quoted are all valid points. The one that's comes anywhere near being 'momentum' is self belief. The other 5 are almost a constant or can be instilled by the manager, granted they don't just happen but, the self belief is one that does have a sort of momentum and can get bigger and faster/stronger.
We will have been well and truly rumbled but the system played and the squad implanting it are difficult to stop. Reading stopped us for 5 or 10 minutes on Saturday but at the expense of leaving themselves wide open at the back. Only a side that can simply keep the ball off us will stop this euphemism momentum as we will continue to beat sides while they don't have the ball.
 
Momentum is a significant factor though.

Wilder has built up a fantastic culture/ foundation and winning mentality.
The players are like a close knit family and must currently feel invincible.

We’ve now won 19 of our last 24 league matches.
Also we won all 6 pre-season friendlies.

So the team are on a run of 25 wins from 29 matches. That is an incredible run of wins.
No wonder they will have no fear going to Elland Road.
We will go there positive, genuinely believing we can beat them.
So when pundits says “momentum”, they are probably talking about confidence and belief.
 
Sparky said:
What exactly IS this so called momentum? It’s not like we’re a three ton ball being shoved down a hill. We’re a football team. One that lost a couple of games near the start of the season. So if it is down to “momentum” from last season how come it didn’t stop then? Good players, good manager, fantastic tactics, great support, self belief and a never say die attitude is what it’s about.
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I think you've answered your own question there.

(i) When a team is doing well, the fans are more likely to get behind the players (and club) even if they make a small mistake. Look over at S6 if you want to see the opposite effect happening.
(ii) Self-belief comes from 'within', of course, but it doesn't do any harm to have a run of 19 wins in 24. It means that the players go out onto the pitch with the feeling that, if they do the same as they've done for the last six months, they're probably going to win. That's a pretty good incentive. That won't be the case for Bolton who, unless they're playing Wednesday, know that they're probably going to lose, even if they put the effort in.
(iii) The never-say-die attitude nearly always comes from past experience. Teams that score late winners often do so in clusters of games. In 2002-03 we had a reputation for late winners ("my lads never know when they're beaten") and that momentum gave the players belief that, even when 2-0 in a play-off semi-final, it was worth putting in an extra 15% of effort, because we'd experienced the benefits of that in the recent past.

Of course, those things only work with the first three points that you mentioned (good players, good manager and fantastic tactics), but to say that momentum doesn't play any role at all is ignoring a huge psychological part of the game (and life, for that matter).

One thing that I would say is that a good manager can mitigate the effects of 'negative momentum'. At the start of last season, with 1 point from 4 games, it would have been easy for the squad to lack belief and for the crowd to turn against the club. To Wilder's credit, he managed that situation amazingly well, and turned things around. I'd say the same about Dave Basset in 1990-91 when we had 4 points from 16 games.
 
Momentum only can be counted for so long.
All it means to me is the players turning up feeling good and used to winning.
We ended last season on fire, won loads and had a huge party. All was well.

However, first game we win but then lose a couple away from home. Plus, this wasn’t the same team despite what was being said by Brown. We have two new full backs playing who finished last season in league 2 and at a garbage Mk side. We had a kid with little experience of actual games sitting in the middle of the defence. A kid in goal.....so 2 thirds of the back line new this season.

So momentum....complete bollocks at this stage of the season. Udders had it for a couple of three games but from then up to this Saturday with a raised performance against a limp Man U it was looking like they might struggle and drift down to the bottom before Xmas. No doubt their players were euphoric at where they were, pinching themselves with disbelief and playing above themselves as a result. That’s momentum, couple of games tops.

United are a championship side minimum. Those players are championship players, many having been there before or played higher. They are not in awe of where they are, and nor should they be. We are 13 games in, almost a third of the way through. This isn’t momentum, it’s clearly a lot more than that. United are a good side, full of good players, with a good manager and backroom set up, and a new big club mentality that has the fans support to back that up. Young players stepping up from the academy.
Things just feel right. And I know it’s early, but this time last year things felt right and I was very confident we would go up as champions. Under Warnock, we had some good seasons but things never felt like this. Bassett too, we were strong but it never felt right, I was always expecting it to go wrong.
Well not this time. I’m feeling quietly confident we will keep this up. Others may strengthen around us, or have a good run, but I feel we are simply relentless. Nothing fazing the team.
I’m not saying we will win the league, but I don’t see us dropping out of the top 6 and if we manage that, knowing how tight this league is usually right until the end then anything can happen. Autos are not out of the question.
 
WincobankBlade said:
Couldn't give a shit what pundits or anyone says right now, we do our talking on the pitch.
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Agreed! I said as much in another thread but I was just pointing out to those that thinks he was giving us credit that it was a more of a let’s see where they are at the end of the season sort of thing as to a how well we’re doing now thing, that’s the impression I got anyway.

Ultimately, I couldn’t give a shit about most things in life and if you met me you’d know that. :)
 
wizadry said:
So as a minimum, we should expect Wilder to get us 103 points this season? That should do for starters! :)
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Quite right - 24 points and we were 4th. We only need 101 to get Tufty’s 3 season average into 3 figures . After 13 games 2 years ago Tufty and Northampton had 21 points and were 9th, so this is his best season yet - continuous improvement. In both previous seasons there is a steady climb in the first half, and then solid top for the second half. So fingers crossed, careful with the mirrors and don’t shag any black cats - sorry Grayson!!
 
i didn't take that as an insult to be fair, do we have momentum? Yes.
if we had a mid season break would we welcome it? No - because it would halt the momentum. We expect we can win every game because
A) we are a good team
B) we are in form
form, winning habit, momentum - differentiate.
Leeds can win comfortably, then lose embarrassingly, what do we have that they don't? Form, winning habit......
 
A class apart?............we should ask the question in 2 games time after Leeds and QPR away.

A third of the season will be over - 7 home games and 8 away and having played a very fair cross section of the league teams will be a great barometer.

UTB
 
WincobankBlade said:
Couldn't give a shit what pundits or anyone says right now, we do our talking on the pitch.
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Precisely. Why anyone should pay any heed to what Phil Fucking Useless Article Brown has to say is beyond me. RugRon’s syrup talks more sense.
 



Sparky said:
What exactly IS this so called momentum? It’s not like we’re a three ton ball being shoved down a hill. We’re a football team. One that lost a couple of games near the start of the season. So if it is down to “momentum” from last season how come it didn’t stop then? Good players, good manager, fantastic tactics, great support, self belief and a never say die attitude is what it’s about.
Click to expand...

I think Danny04 explains very well what is momentum in today's Star:
 
In my opinion, momentum is not the cause of long spells of winning but more the result of winning. Winning through determination, skill in abundance, great cameraderie and teamwork and an undeniable master and first mate at the helm! We don’t win because of momentum, we gain momentum because we win! COYRAWW
 
Pinchy said:
Precisely. Why anyone should pay any heed to what Phil Fucking Useless Article Brown has to say is beyond me. RugRon’s syrup talks more sense.
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I'm not even sure why he thinks it's appropriate to be on TV programmes when his club is floundering in mid table.

Why anyone gives a shit what he says is beyond me. Is it because we've become addicted to moaning and nit picking and now we've actually got nothing to moan about we're just trying to find things, however trivial, to whinge about?
 
FATTYFOULKE said:
We’d better be careful. Carry on like we are and the rest of the Championship might cotton on, our element of surprise might be gone....

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/five-things-learned-reading-fcs-13795709

Sheffield United are a class apart
The Blades are arguably the best side Royals have come up against this season and their results so far back that up.

Although they do not have any so-called 'stars', they are a hard-working, organised team with each member knowing what to do.
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250px-A_breed_apart_poster.jpg
 
The fact of the matter is, we are a very good Championship team this season because we were a very good Championship team last season...........Playing in League One.
 
Having thought about this, Phil Brown was asked if he thought we were a good team if my memory serves me correct, the reason everyone got wound up was because he refused to say we were a good team and just said we had momentum.

Maybe if he did say that we were as good as people are making us out, it would weaken his hand in the Leonard deal...
 
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