"A lot needs to happen off the pitch" - Wilder

[Cerberus Blade]

Before the Stoke game, Wilder was asked by that new presenter on FH, you know, the one who asks lots of questions,

"Could Stoke be the model for a club like Sheffield United?"

He was referring to the fact that Stoke are not a "big" club (in his perception) but had spent the past 10 years in the top flight of English football.

I thought Chris's response was very interesting...he said...

"A lot needs to happen off the pitch for that to happen"

He turned this into a general comment, rather than a comment specifically about Sheffield United. He talked about other clubs "like your Bournemouth's and your Swansea's" (I thought there was only one Bournemouth and one Swansea?). But, apart from his confusing use of plurals, what he was saying was very clear to me...You need the whole club to be pulling in the same direction to have any chance of that - and - you need them upstairs to be prepared to invest in the team to have a chance of getting there and staying there.

I then started to think about the present situation we have with The Prince and McCabe. That seems to have gone very quiet doesn't it? Or have I missed something? The last thing I read, The Prince was calling McCabe a "dog". I thought about that this week after reading about the Khashoggi murder. It was said that one of the ring leaders in the Khashoggi case called for the hit squad to, "bring me the head of the dog".

These Arab chappies are fond of calling people "dogs" when they don't like them aren't they? I remember reading such curses as "infidel dogs" in comic strips as a child. It was usually spouted at the archetypal white soldier by some beardy Arab bloke with a tea towel on his head and a scimitar in his hand. For sure though, it's not a sign of good relations when an Arab calls you "a dog".

Whether this has got anything to do with McCabe talking about, "When the big dog comes knocking" I've really no idea? But that's another thing altogether.

The main thing I took from what Wilder said was that it's far too early to be confident that Sheffield United could get themselves into a Stoke-like situation. In fact, he even spoke of his target for this season as being 50 points - I'm pretty sure it isn't. But, I can understand why he might want to diffuse conversations about being a top tier club.

He's doing everything he can, on very modest resources, to try and get us there. But it must seem like a strange task at times, because he's leading us to a place where we have absolutely no chance of surviving whilever the current boardroom impasse continues.

 

[Trigger Blade]

The difference between the two clubs in ownership terms is huge.

Going back to the late eighties, Peter Coates took over the club. He wasn’t hugely wealthy, he made his money from a few local betting shops and a company that supplied catering to football clubs. He sold out to an Icelandic consortium and then about 8 years later, bought the club back again.

He wasn’t hugely popular and I have friends who said they’d never set foot in the ground while he was chairman. He still wasn’t hugely rich, but his daughter had spotted the potential of online betting very early. He told her to get on with it, fast forward to 2018, the family are billionaires and he’s bankrolled 10 years in the Premier. My friends swallowed their pride and got season tickets and as a local resident while this was happening, I hated every minute of it.

What the clayheads have is a complete unity of purpose at board level and I imagine this is what Chris is referring to.

 

[diode_blade]

Sounds a bit like Tufty's trying to do the best he can but with one ankle and one hand chained to the gate post, Sheff U way though, we get an honest good manager who turns the club around on the pitch, gets the fans behind the team but those in charge continue to chuck sticks of dynamite underneath him.
Remnds me of the end scene of "Von Ryans Express" with Sinatra reaching out to grab the hand to get pulled onto the train...like us trying to reach the prem...

 

[SwissBlade]

Cerberus Blade I started reading this and thought it might be a decent topic, but i got lost in the anti saudi sentiment and some spurious link to the Khassogi case...

 

[Carlton Blade]

The Princes main claim to fame is playing online fantasy NFL. Not sure you're comments about infidels are relevant

 

[Nade]

Before the Stoke game, Wilder was asked by that new presenter on FH, you know, the one who asks lots of questions,

"Could Stoke be the model for a club like Sheffield United?"

He was referring to the fact that Stoke are not a "big" club (in his perception) but had spent the past 10 years in the top flight of English football.

I thought Chris's response was very interesting...he said...

"A lot needs to happen off the pitch for that to happen"

He turned this into a general comment, rather than a comment specifically about Sheffield United. He talked about other clubs "like your Bournemouth's and your Swansea's" (I thought there was only one Bournemouth and one Swansea?). But, apart from his confusing use of plurals, what he was saying was very clear to me...You need the whole club to be pulling in the same direction to have any chance of that - and - you need them upstairs to be prepared to invest in the team to have a chance of getting there and staying there.

I then started to think about the present situation we have with The Prince and McCabe. That seems to have gone very quiet doesn't it? Or have I missed something? The last thing I read, The Prince was calling McCabe a "dog". I thought about that this week after reading about the Khashoggi murder. It was said that one of the ring leaders in the Khashoggi case called for the hit squad to, "bring me the head of the dog".

These Arab chappies are fond of calling people "dogs" when they don't like them aren't they? I remember reading such curses as "infidel dogs" in comic strips as a child. It was usually spouted at the archetypal white soldier by some beardy Arab bloke with a tea towel on his head and a scimitar in his hand. For sure though, it's not a sign of good relations when an Arab calls you "a dog".

Whether this has got anything to do with McCabe talking about, "When the big dog comes knocking" I've really no idea? But that's another thing altogether.

The main thing I took from what Wilder said was that it's far too early to be confident that Sheffield United could get themselves into a Stoke-like situation. In fact, he even spoke of his target for this season as being 50 points - I'm pretty sure it isn't. But, I can understand why he might want to diffuse conversations about being a top tier club.

He's doing everything he can, on very modest resources, to try and get us there. But it must seem like a strange task at times, because he's leading us to a place where we have absolutely no chance of surviving whilever the current boardroom impasse continues.

You get a like purely for the use of 'whilever'.

 

[Snowman]

Cerberus Blade I started reading this and thought it might be a decent topic, but i got lost in the anti saudi sentiment and some spurious link to the Khassogi case...

Well Cerberus is a dog, so he has a special interest.

 

[raul]

Is it just a ruse to increase said canines counted in the attendance figures?

 

[mattbianco1]

It's strange really because the playing side of the club (players and management) in addition to the fans are all in unison... sorry,"United" would've been a better word. The missing piece is the owners and a big January transfer window.

A genuine challenger for Duffy's shirt and a prolific striker is all we're lacking on the pitch.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Cerberus Blade but i got lost in the anti saudi sentiment

That was my favourite part, fuckers are still making the price of my groceries rise. On the plus side the roads aren't clogged up by their shit driving and the hotel pools are now offering beer more openly!

One thing I do realise is that it can't be a good thing to have an Arab owner in the long term. I do business with a lot of Arabs and I daresay that many of these could easily buy the Blades and give us a healthy budget. However the way in which they do business would absolutely destroy the values of the club and we have seen that to a limited extent with Abdullah putting his minions on the board and trying to meddle with the footballing side of things. Man City and PSG fans might argue otherwise but I don't think Arabic interest in football clubs is a good thing at all. That said, Russians are nuts, South East Asians are loonies and the Chinese aren't doing a great job either. Bloody foreigners!

 

[Sheffsteel]

The missing piece is the owners and a big January transfer window.

A genuine challenger for Duffy's shirt and a prolific striker is all we're lacking on the pitch.

Agree with you but it’s already been reported that funds of at least £5 million are available for January, so it’s looks certain that we will have a big spending transfer window.

The problem is to buy the guaranteed top quality for these popular positions., it’ll costs a minimum of £10 million for a striker and £10 million for an attacking midfielder.

Are you hoping we spend 20 million in January? Because if we did i’d be seriously worried with the mad shit or bust policy.
Think the best we’re going to do is a decent signing for about 6 milion or so and possibly a top end loanee.

But I susoect that when the board show ambition and break our transfer record
Some of our fans won’t be happy and will be relatively underwhelmed with the signing.
It’s always easy to want to spend someone else’s money but there are implications that effect us all.

 

[North somerset blade]

What this all means is that Sir Chris will take us further than we imagined and when the added support needed from the owner(s) / Board isn’t forthcoming for the next level, then he will sadly be off to a club where he’ll get this. And who could blame him ?

 

[Topplayersleave]

That was my favourite part, fuckers are still making the price of my groceries rise. On the plus side the roads aren't clogged up by their shit driving and the hotel pools are now offering beer more openly!

One thing I do realise is that it can't be a good thing to have an Arab owner in the long term. I do business with a lot of Arabs and I daresay that many of these could easily buy the Blades and give us a healthy budget. However the way in which they do business would absolutely destroy the values of the club and we have seen that to a limited extent with Abdullah putting his minions on the board and trying to meddle with the footballing side of things. Man City and PSG fans might argue otherwise but I don't think Arabic interest in football clubs is a good thing at all. That said, Russians are nuts, South East Asians are loonies and the Chinese aren't doing a great job either. Bloody foreigners!

Funny that, considering every successful club has got one or the other

 

[Topplayersleave]

Agree with you but it’s already been reported that funds of at least £5 million are available for January, so it’s looks certain that we will have a big spending transfer window.

The problem is to buy the guaranteed top quality for these popular positions., it’ll costs a minimum of £10 million for a striker and £10 million for an attacking midfielder.

Are you hoping we spend 20 million in January? Because if we did i’d be seriously worried with the mad shit or bust policy.
Think the best we’re going to do is a decent signing for about 6 milion or so and possibly a top end loanee.

But I susoect that when the board show ambition and break our transfer record
Some of our fans won’t be happy and will be relatively underwhelmed with the signing.
It’s always easy to want to spend someone else’s money but there are implications that effect us all.

We don't need £20 million to get promoted, I'm sure that out there somewhere is a quick, strong, fit, youngish striker that could bang 12 goals in for us between January and May that we could get for £3 - £4 million. The problem is finding them, they'll definitely be out there in Spain or France but we don't do Spain or France.
One thing I don't want is a loan from Man UfuckingNited or Liverpool. It never works at our club, you can almost sense their feeling of entitlement and lack of commitment the second they walk through the door.
The other thing is, it's not all somebody else's money. If we have a shortfall of £5 million per year that's what our owners put in. But we fans put more than that in each season so we deserve to be able to call it our money as well.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Funny that, considering every successful club has got one or the other

I honestly would feel very little affinity to a club owned by a megalomaniac and staffed by a bunch of £100k+ a week egotistical footballers. You ask a few Man City fans now the initial novelty of winning trophies has worn off whether they preferred watching Paul Dickov at Maine Road or David Silva at the Etihad and I know what they'd say.

People seem to think that wanting to support a club with an identity, with a good manager that understands the fans and players who you can get onside with is a "little club" mentality. If that's the case then that is me.

I'd like a year in the PL with this bunch of players just to give the club a financial buffer but I wouldn't be arsed if we went back down and carried on playing decent football and winning more than we lose in an entertaining manner. The reality of the PL is that we'd lose more than we won within a few seasons we'd have 25k attendances apart from the big games as it would be a constant scrap for points.

 

[Houston_Blade]

We don't need £20 million to get promoted, I'm sure that out there somewhere is a quick, strong, fit, youngish striker that could bang 12 goals in for us between January and May that we could get for £3 - £4 million. The problem is finding them, they'll definitely be out there in Spain or France but we don't do Spain or France.
One thing I don't want is a loan from Man UfuckingNited or Liverpool. It never works at our club, you can almost sense their feeling of entitlement and lack of commitment the second they walk through the door.
The other thing is, it's not all somebody else's money. If we have a shortfall of £5 million per year that's what our owners put in. But we fans put more than that in each season so we deserve to be able to call it our money as well.

Do you not like Dean Henderson? Does he have a sense of entitlement? I'd actually say that being at Man Utd has made him more able to enjoy a loan spell at the Blades. There are others like James Wilson and his ilk who would never have been good enough and clearly think they are so I get your point partially.

 

[Topplayersleave]

I honestly would feel very little affinity to a club owned by a megalomaniac and staffed by a bunch of £100k+ a week egotistical footballers. You ask a few Man City fans now the initial novelty of winning trophies has worn off whether they preferred watching Paul Dickov at Maine Road or David Silva at the Etihad and I know what they'd say.

People seem to think that wanting to support a club with an identity, with a good manager that understands the fans and players who you can get onside with is a "little club" mentality. If that's the case then that is me.

I'd like a year in the PL with this bunch of players just to give the club a financial buffer but I wouldn't be arsed if we went back down and carried on playing decent football and winning more than we lose in an entertaining manner. The reality of the PL is that we'd lose more than we won within a few seasons we'd have 25k attendances apart from the big games as it would be a constant scrap for points.

Sorry mate, but I do believe you're talking out of your arse....no offence.
I know a couple of Man City fans, known them many years and they can't believe what has happened and never want to go back to how it was.

And this is a club who have had a reasonable conveyor belt of superstars of their own throughout the years before the money arrived, Rodney Marsh, Colin Bell, Tommy Caton, Francis Lee, Denis Law, Asa Hartford, Dennis Tueart, Joe Corrigan, Georg Kinkladze, Shaun Wright Phillips to name a few.
They've had some crap too, what club hasn't. But Man City have had some extremely good players down the generations, they've just maybe not had a full team of them all at the same time. And their fans still don't want to go back to what it was like before.

Chelsea fans I'm sure are the same

 

[derryblade]

I must have missed the news we had £5 million to spend in January, the latest I heard was Mr Justice Fancourt at the High Court had banged their heads together and told them to find £10 million to fund bills and the transfer budget up to January didn't say beyond.

 

[SUFC Guy]

Agree with you but it’s already been reported that funds of at least £5 million are available for January, so it’s looks certain that we will have a big spending transfer window.

The problem is to buy the guaranteed top quality for these popular positions., it’ll costs a minimum of £10 million for a striker and £10 million for an attacking midfielder.

Are you hoping we spend 20 million in January? Because if we did i’d be seriously worried with the mad shit or bust policy.
Think the best we’re going to do is a decent signing for about 6 milion or so and possibly a top end loanee.

But I susoect that when the board show ambition and break our transfer record
Some of our fans won’t be happy and will be relatively underwhelmed with the signing.
It’s always easy to want to spend someone else’s money but there are implications that effect us all.

I'd have no objection to spunkin £20m for the 2 players that we need if those funds were there to spend as a one off. It's the wages that need to stay sensible over the 3 or 4 year contracts that those players would want, so that the TCO wouldn't cripple us long term.

We still have the Brooks money? We would surely have something to spend anyway this coming Jan. Anyway £20m is a guesstimate - look how little we paid for Ollie Norwood

 

[mattbianco1]

The problem is to buy the guaranteed top quality for these popular positions., it’ll costs a minimum of £10 million for a striker and £10 million for an attacking midfielder.

Not entirely true. Jack Marriott as an example at Derby cost £3m rising to £5m. There are some out there,hopefully we can find one.

Peterborough have replaced Marriott with Matt Gooden of Stevenage 9 in 14. Kieffer Moore at Barnsley has got 7 already, Tom Hopper at Southend - 7 goals already after his 20 for Scunthorpe the year before. These are the type of players that can make the difference for us and i'm sure the kind that we're looking at as CWAK have always bought lower league "hungry" players.

I'd like us to go for Josh Maja at Sunderland, but they don't exactly need the money.

 

[SUFC Guy]

I honestly would feel very little affinity to a club owned by a megalomaniac and staffed by a bunch of £100k+ a week egotistical footballers. You ask a few Man City fans now the initial novelty of winning trophies has worn off whether they preferred watching Paul Dickov at Maine Road or David Silva at the Etihad and I know what they'd say.

People seem to think that wanting to support a club with an identity, with a good manager that understands the fans and players who you can get onside with is a "little club" mentality. If that's the case then that is me.

I'd like a year in the PL with this bunch of players just to give the club a financial buffer but I wouldn't be arsed if we went back down and carried on playing decent football and winning more than we lose in an entertaining manner. The reality of the PL is that we'd lose more than we won within a few seasons we'd have 25k attendances apart from the big games as it would be a constant scrap for points.

It would not be a disaster even if we yoyo'd for a few seasons before a proper assault on the Prem

 

[Topplayersleave]

Do you not like Dean Henderson? Does he have a sense of entitlement? I'd actually say that being at Man Utd has made him more able to enjoy a loan spell at the Blades. There are others like James Wilson and his ilk who would never have been good enough and clearly think they are so I get your point partially.

Deano seem to be the exception, he put in a good shift for Shrewsbury as well so he's obviously a very grounded young man who realises that to get to the top he has to work hard.
Maybe he wants to get to the top whereas some of the others are happy enough with £20,000 or £30,000 a week as a reserve player for as long as it lasts and then they can con another £15,000 a week contract out of some other unfortunate club when their Man Utd days are over

 

[Houston_Blade]

Sorry mate, but I do believe you're talking out of your arse....no offence.
I know a couple of Man City fans, known them many years and they can't believe what has happened and never want to go back to how it was.

And this is a club who have had a reasonable conveyor belt of superstars of their own throughout the years before the money arrived, Rodney Marsh, Colin Bell, Tommy Caton, Francis Lee, Denis Law, Asa Hartford, Dennis Tueart, Joe Corrigan, Georg Kinkladze, Shaun Wright Phillips to name a few.
They've had some crap too, what club hasn't. But Man City have had some extremely good players down the generations, they've just maybe not had a full team of them all at the same time. And their fans still don't want to go back to what it was like before.

Chelsea fans I'm sure are the same

It's my opinion so I don't see how it's "talking out of my arse". I also know a few City fans that have been ST holders for a long time and they don't feel any kind of connection with the club anymore, they will continue to be ST holders but hold a very romantic view of the old times and would prefer to be that club to the one they are now.

Buying instant success seems to be the preferred formula nowadays but I personally think it's shit. When the rich benefactor moves onto their next project what are you left with?!

 

[Houston_Blade]

Deano seem to be the exception, he put in a good shift for Shrewsbury as well so he's obviously a very grounded young man who realises that to get to the top he has to work hard.
Maybe he wants to get to the top whereas some of the others are happy enough with £20,000 or £30,000 a week as a reserve player for as long as it lasts and then they can con another £15,000 a week contract out of some other unfortunate club when their Man Utd days are over

Can't argue with that, it's back to the post of a few weeks ago where the best way to stop this happening would be limit the loan signings allowed out of a club. They'd soon stop stockpiling the talent if that happened.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Has Prince Abdullah spoken out?

I thought it was his lawyer who had insulted McCabe.

 

[LJBlade]

Not entirely true. Jack Marriott as an example at Derby cost £3m rising to £5m. There are some out there,hopefully we can find one.

Peterborough have replaced Marriott with Matt Gooden of Stevenage 9 in 14. Kieffer Moore at Barnsley has got 7 already, Tom Hopper at Southend - 7 goals already after his 20 for Scunthorpe the year before. These are the type of players that can make the difference for us and i'm sure the kind that we're looking at as CWAK have always bought lower league "hungry" players.

I'd like us to go for Josh Maja at Sunderland, but they don't exactly need the money.

I think the key word in the sentence you quoted was 'guaranteed'. None of the names you've mentioned are guaranteed quality.

 

[mattbianco1]

I think the key word in the sentence you quoted was 'guaranteed'. None of the names you've mentioned are guaranteed quality.

Every transfer is a gamble. You can't guarantee anything.

Jordan Rhodes is guaranteed goals yet he was a £10m flop.
Ricky Holmes and Ryan Leonard were chased for months but didn't work out.
Then you have Leon Clarke (£200k) and McGoldrick (free) who are the opposite way around.

 

[LJBlade]

Every transfer is a gamble. You can't guarantee anything.

Jordan Rhodes is guaranteed goals yet he was a £10m flop.
Ricky Holmes and Ryan Leonard were chased for months but didn't work out.
Then you have Leon Clarke (£200k) and McGoldrick (free) who are the opposite way around.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just pointing out that the sentence you quoted was talking about guaranteed quality and the closer you get to that the more you have to spend

 

[ekke287]

Not entirely true. Jack Marriott as an example at Derby cost £3m rising to £5m. There are some out there,hopefully we can find one.

Peterborough have replaced Marriott with Matt Gooden of Stevenage 9 in 14. Kieffer Moore at Barnsley has got 7 already, Tom Hopper at Southend - 7 goals already after his 20 for Scunthorpe the year before. These are the type of players that can make the difference for us and i'm sure the kind that we're looking at as CWAK have always bought lower league "hungry" players.

I'd like us to go for Josh Maja at Sunderland, but they don't exactly need the money.

If we're back to looking at lower league gambles we may as well recall Ched and save some money.

I don't think he's up to it at this level personally, but it's always an option on a gamble.

 

[Dkc]

He turned this into a general comment, rather than a comment specifically about Sheffield United. He talked about other clubs "like your Bournemouth's and your Swansea's" (I thought there was only one Bournemouth and one Swansea?). But, apart from his confusing use of plurals, what he was saying was very clear to me....

Jeez, what has Chris done to deserve that sly dig? He used a very common figure of speech, we've all used it, where you cite a couple of examples in the plural to refer to a broader group.

For example, your "Gibraltars and Andorras" would be used to refer to all European football minnows. The "Robinsons and Frantzens of this world" would imply reference to a broader group of nationalist activists.

The English language is rich and diverse, with many sayings, metaphors and figures of speech. Chris used a very comon one. Why should we give a fuck?