Article from The Independent

[Yogi]

It's not unreasonable to suggest that Chris Wilder isn't the greatest technical football coach around but that's why he's got the rest of the coaching team around him. Matt Prestridge for sport science (quite how he's not been poached is beyond me), Alan Knill for tactics, Darren Ward for goalkeeping, Rhys Carr for individual development plus the fitness coaches and others not named anywhere. Wilder's main remit is knitting it all together.

It's also not unfair to point out that his management career was solid but unspectacular until he joined forces with Alan Knill.

Agreed his individual career isn’t stellar but arguably he’s a manager not a head coach his job is to motivate the team and function as the CEO for the coaching staff everyone is answerable to him. He has to see an overview an ensure all the elements of the staff are ticking along and doing their job.

Developed hidden gems from league one journey men to premier league players -

developed a tactical system not seen before to devastating effect which will go on to influence how the role of centreback is perceived going forward -

suddenly forgotten all he knows about football and just ask the players to run around a lot don’t bother with kicking that annoying round thing - erm what?

 

[nopigfansintown]

Despicable hit piece masquerading as journalism. And people wonder why no one buys what they're selling anymore.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Quite damning of Wilder & Knill's training methods.

 

[Newbury Blade]

Quoting unnamed sources is bad enough in a political story. In an article like this, it’s inexcusable and absurd. I was a senior editor on that paper for 10 years, and I’d have told him to name them, or remove the quotes.

 

[Deadbat]

To be honest there's lazy bits in the article and these unnamed sources he refers to always negates any credible insider info.

However, we are on course to be the worst team in top flight history. Going from 9th to 20th and now nailed on to be relegated and not win one game then we are going to get articles like this. It's staggering how we have fallen so fast so journalists will examine why and it's not going to be positive.

I am not sure why people get so prickly when journalists are saying we have been found out, 2nd season syndrome, Wilders ideas have been rumbled and we/he looks rather clueless. I love the guy but I can't present anything to the contrary.

Last year we/he took all the plaudits and we all lapped it up. Have to take the rough with the smooth.

It's not exactly a very revealing article or well written but as I say we are there to be shot at. The only way to answer stuff like that is prove them wrong but sadky we have not done that.

 

[gordoncharles]

It's The Independent. It isn't even a newspaper. Its Twitter feed is just full of clickbait. I'm surprised the writer didn't manage to shoehorn Brexit or Trump into there somehow.

It looks like someone asked the guy for 500 or so words and he cobbled something together after a quick phone call to someone he knows who knew someone who might once have played under Wilder, though I imagine it's all made up.

Anyone who ever watched the now-cancelled Sky Sunday Supplement knows that football writers don't know anything more about football than thee or me, and their sources usually just play them for their own advantage.

There's also no such thing as "second season syndrome".

We've all got our views as to why the side is flailing and failing and they'll all be more accurate than what this bloke has to say, purely on the basis that we all watch the flaming games.

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

To be honest there's lazy bits in the article and these unnamed sources he refers to always negates any credible insider info.

However, we are on course to be the worst team in top flight history. Going from 9th to 20th and now nailed on to be relegated and not win one game then we are going to get articles like this. It's staggering how we have fallen so fast so journalists will examine why and it's not going to be positive.

I am not sure why people get so prickly when journalists are saying we have been found out, 2nd season syndrome, Wilders ideas have been rumbled and we/he looks rather clueless. I love the guy but I can't present anything to the contrary.

Last year we/he took all the plaudits and we all lapped it up. Have to take the rough with the smooth.

It's not exactly a very revealing article or well written but as I say we are there to be shot at. The only way to answer stuff like that is prove them wrong but sadky we have not done that.

Very well put .

The fact is that most if not all the other PL teams have developed systems to deal with ours , to the extent that they force us into one which is no longer 3-5-2 but rather 5 -1 - 2 ..................2 .

Our ‘tactical’ response to this has been - “ Erm , I’ll play him instead of him , and him instead of him and hope things get better .”

Chris Wilder has accumulated an enormous amount of Brownie points in his time at our club , but is now in danger of throwing them all away and leaving a legacy of that of being a one trick pony rather than a tactical genius .

Only he can determine which it is to be and the time has come for him to do so , rather than looking for any and every excuse for the worst start to the season of any football club in the top flight since the game began .

 

[TJB.]

That has the whiff of a Daily Mail article about a celebrity who has dared to question why reporters are searching their bins and noting how many times the loo gets flushed.

 

[tincan]

But they missed the bit about sacrificing the luminous yellow away shirt for the shocking pink relegation one and the depressing green one. Ever since then we were pants. CWAK wasting £100m is nothing to do with our 2 points in 17 games it's the shirts...

 

[Upton_Blade]

This business with “unnamed lower league sources” is bollocks

If, and it's a massive if, the writer had actually spoken to any lower league sources (very debateable) then it smacks of a good old case of jealousy to me.

 

[robbiez666]

My first thought around training is what has happened to our physical and fitness training? We've gone from competing on that score with every team to half our team looking shattered after 60 minutes of putting in less effort than last year.

 

[Chilttheblade]

Developed hidden gems from league one journey men to premier league players -

Crappy article but who are these hidden gems/Premier league players

Can't think of any one player (maybe JOC)who we could sell to a Premier League club

 

[DroitwichBlade]

I refuse to believe that we have “been found out” with regards to our over lapping centre back.
I mean, there is no team in any league that doesn’t scout a club for what their tactics are before a match or season.
Does anyone really think that Man City, Chelsea, Spurs, etc didn’t look at what we did?
Like we just turned up at their grounds and they thought “shit!, never seen this before” we better work on this one for next time.

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

Ex player or current player.

 

[Yogi]

Crappy article but who are these hidden gems/Premier league players

Can't think of any one player (maybe JOC)who we could sell to a Premier League club

JOC. I’d say baldock has been a solid if not spectacular prem right back which isn’t bad for a player signed for half a mill from MK dons. Basham if he was younger would definitely be staying in the prem next year. In fact I’ll go so far as to say for us to get to the prem with what we paid for literally every player we signed in wilders first 3 years is astounding and shows that we developed those players as other clubs were willing to let them go for next to nothing.

 

[Delboyscap]

That's a really, really weird article full of unnamed sources basically making out like Wilder is a dinosaur who got lucky. Almost like the writer, or someone feeding the writer, has a huge grudge.

I’d be interested to read a serious analysis of what has gone wrong this season and I don’t demand that journalists kiss Wilder’s or the club’s arse, but this reads like a shoddy hit piece on our manager. This business with “unnamed lower league sources” is bollocks—you’re talking about the football, not matters of national security, so have the balls to put your name to it.

Got to admit I had been hoping that someone would do an analysis of the slump (hoping Sky or someone would have covered this by now) but agree this is a just a very badly written piece full of innuendo and no substance or investigation. The use of unnamed sources is laughable too.

Obviously some points that have merit. I am on record myself as saying that Knill is a huge factor in their successful partnership but to claim that success has been built on luck for close to 7 years now is more than laughable. Admittedly though it does seem to be time for a system change as a lot of us have noted. It also suggests that no manager lower than the Prem does any sort of tactical analysis of teams they come up against and that includes the likes of Biesla and Lampard. It is also a strange dichotomy contained within the piece whereby Wilder is said to have been found out but acknowledging that the losses are often by the tiniest of margins. Very strange 'journalism'...oh to be a journalist or a politician so you can be absolute tosh at your job and still have job security.

 

[Tezza1889]

Reads like he was asked for a piece on Wilder and didn't have time to do it properly.

The Danny Ings bit is just bizarre. One source said United would've improved if they'd signed a player who they couldn't afford and who wouldn't have come even if they could.

Some people who claim to be journalists aren't, sports journalism requires a few basics which were never seen in this article, one of those basics is the fact that some players won't move north unless its to Man utd Man city or liverpool.. A chance of success, champions league football and pots of lovely cash..of which we don't have any.

They stay on south coast, the missus likes the weather, 30 mins from London and if you play well, you can go to Chelsea and not even have to move house.. Or the kids move school, all these factors are huge... The bright lights are a huge draw when your pockets are full..

For the lower team managers who couldn't understand how he would sustain it, I take it theyre still lower league managers then, looking for reasons as to why they haven't achieved anywhere near the same levels of success, maybe a lack of talent needs to be acknowledged first by themselves before looking at what another manager might get wrong..

I suspect they don't exist and the idiots made that bit up, because everybody in football must respect league one to Premier league in 4 seasons, is a right achievement, the managers we did hear from had nothing but praise..

It's a shit article, probably unpaid, and deservedly so.

 

[stringer]

oh to be a journalist ... and still have job security.

lol

 

[CarlMcBlade]

I’ve read the Gideon Bible more than I have The Independent. I think Woman’s Realm and Practical Caravanning have a bigger readership.....So pffff to this article.

 

[Wards]

Can anyone with access to the Athletic c&p the article on our recruitment strategy?

My subscription expired a week or so ago and don't get enough out of the thing to renew it but wouldn't mind a gander.