BladesPod: The 10 most important players of the Chris Wilder era

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true99blade said:
Blimey there are so many to pick...

To be a bit of a hipster, I reckon the 10 most important have to be the settled team in League One first and foremost. Without any single one of them in their respective position we haven’t a clue how we would’ve fared, and they were the first to demonstrate how the role should be done.

Moore
Freeman
Basham
Wright
O’Connell
Lafferty
Coutts
Fleck
Duffy
Sharp

Obviously we’ve had better players in positions than the likes of Moore (Henderson), Lafferty (Stevens), Wright (Egan), Coutts (Norwood).

Just a bit of fun.
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Lafferty and Moore is a good shout TBH.

Those two coming in made us much more solid defensively.
 

Teofilo Cubillas said:
The most important was Duffy.

I think it reads like this:

Duffy scores that goal.
We gain momentum.
We are promoted.
Duffy asks for a pay rise.
Wilder throws him out on his arse and changes the system forever.
After two months Lunny - the new Duffy - is out of puff.
New season, and straight away JOC is injured, then Berge, then Egan, then Bash, then Billy.
Only Jags is left.
No one can score and there's still no new Duffy.
Now it's just another bunch of useless bastards.
Wilder gets 2 million and goes on holiday (having learn't everything from Duffy's agent).
Sheff Utd are relegated.
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Revisionist nonsense. But Duffy was great and should have played in the top league. Really sad it ended how it did
 
Moore - first strong goalkeeper we had in League 1
Sharp - goals
Duffy - skill
Coutts - renaissance man
JOC - integral to our style of play
Henderson - crucially won us games IMO
Brooks - allowed investment to get us promoted
McGoldrick - what a player
Basham - see JOC and Coutts
Norwood - preferred Coutts in the midfield, but we wouldn't have got promoted without him.
 
Stannington Blade said:
This is tricky.

I'd probably go, in no particular order, like this;

Billy Sharp
Paul Coutts
Oli Norwood
Jack O'Connell
Chris Basham
Mark Duffy
David McGoldrick
John Fleck
Jake Wright
Kieron Freeman

I've deliberately done this before listening too so will be interesting to hear yours.

There are too many honourable mentions although I think because of where we were at the time and the sheer disbelief of it I could put Moose's 3 month spell on there. I genuinely got carried away that we had signed an unplayable football manager style striker.
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Mousset & Leon Clarke each had an unbelievable purple patch. Such a shame we never land on that type of striker who can maintain that level consistently.

I also thought Mousset was going to be sold at the end of the season for £40m+. Now, I'd be happy to recoup half of what we paid just to get rid of him.
 
I haven't listened to the pod yet (cheers lads by the way) and am probably just repeating someone else's 10 here (as reading every list will give me a headache) but here are mine, again in no particular order

A few more could have made the list but this is based on those who were consistently the best in their positions, and over a sustained period of time playing under Wilder.

Henderson
Egan
Basham
O'Connell
Coutts
Norwood
Fleck
Duffy
Didsy
Sharp

Near misses...

J. Wright snr- very near, and only loses out to Egan who did it over a longer period and stepped up a level much better.

K.Freeman - those goals from RWB can never be understated, but he didn't quite make the step up and once George got established, Kieron lost out to a more complete player.

Baldock - see above, better overall than Freeman, but it took him a season to fully wrestle the position away from him.

Moore - I know I know, but we had been screaming out for a decent keeper for how many seasons? Had been made to witness the pittiful ravaging of George Long by the mob, and whoever stepped into that role needed balls of brass. Moore did a fantastic job for a season and a half, and Blackman was inconsistent so we needed Simon to keep pushing him. Deano also praised him a lot, as the guy who helped him most in training.

Clarke - Scored some absolute beauties for us, the best finisher from mid range we have had for decades, and that first season in the champ was simply outstanding. Plus, whilst bouncing day will always be best remembered for a certain other goal by a certain other player, I will NEVER forget Leon's first, and the way he calmly controlled the ball with his knob before tucking it away and dismissively sticking it to their Kop. Those scenes on the touchline!!!
 
Great question!

My top 10, from 1st to 10th

Sharp
O’Connell
Basham
Henderson
Coutts
Norwood
Fleck
McGoldrick
K Freeman
Mousset
 
Thanks Beans and Roygbiv . Loving this - first one I've listened to in a while (I'm a fair weather listener and have reduced my thinking about United this season to a minimum).

For me, the top 10 is:

Basham
Coutts
O'Connell
Sharp
Henderson
Egan
McGoldrick
Fleck
Norwood
Duffy

In answer to the major questions you posed: the 2018/19 team would have been promoted with pre-injury Coutts in the middle of the park. I genuinely think he was a better player than Norwood.

The 2016/17 side wouldn't have got promoted with George Long between the sticks but only because he was a lightening rod for the displeasure of the support at the Adkins era. Had we signed Long for £250k from a Championship side he'd have been fine and certainly not levels below Simon Moore who remains (in my opinion) no more than a competent League One goalkeeper. However, Long got brought in too soon and his confidence got destroyed.
 
Couldn’t really argue with the top 10. I may have swapped Duffy and Norwood, plus JoC and Fleck, but otherwise I’m the same.

Interesting point of note that Roy’s anecdotes have now shifted from the toilet, to the pub.
 
Stretch said:
I haven't listened to the pod yet (cheers lads by the way) and am probably just repeating someone else's 10 here (as reading every list will give me a headache) but here are mine, again in no particular order

A few more could have made the list but this is based on those who were consistently the best in their positions, and over a sustained period of time playing under Wilder.

Henderson
Egan
Basham
O'Connell
Coutts
Norwood
Fleck
Duffy
Didsy
Sharp

Near misses...

J. Wright snr- very near, and only loses out to Egan who did it over a longer period and stepped up a level much better.

K.Freeman - those goals from RWB can never be understated, but he didn't quite make the step up and once George got established, Kieron lost out to a more complete player.

Baldock - see above, better overall than Freeman, but it took him a season to fully wrestle the position away from him.

Moore - I know I know, but we had been screaming out for a decent keeper for how many seasons? Had been made to witness the pittiful ravaging of George Long by the mob, and whoever stepped into that role needed balls of brass. Moore did a fantastic job for a season and a half, and Blackman was inconsistent so we needed Simon to keep pushing him. Deano also praised him a lot, as the guy who helped him most in training.

Clarke - Scored some absolute beauties for us, the best finisher from mid range we have had for decades, and that first season in the champ was simply outstanding. Plus, whilst bouncing day will always be best remembered for a certain other goal by a certain other player, I will NEVER forget Leon's first, and the way he calmly controlled the ball with his knob before tucking it away and dismissively sticking it to their Kop. Those scenes on the touchline!!!
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I guess it depends on what "important" means. To me the turnaround in our fortunes in 2016 and finally getting out of League 1 was the biggie that it was all based on. I missed the Southend game but at the Rochdale (1-1) game I remember saying we just seemed to be lacking some leadership on the pitch. Wright coming in for the Oxford game was pivotal in addressing that problem IMO. Also think Moore and Freeman coming in at that time was key.

It's a difficult one to choose just 10 and a great idea for a podcast Beans and Roygbiv .
 
Beans said:
Afternoon all,

I made Roygbiv very angry this week by setting him the challenge of picking the 10 most important players of Wilder's tenure as manager, as some very well-loved names didn't make the cut. Between us we whittled our respective shortlists down to 10, and then settled on an overall ranking. You can hear who made our list here, and who the overall number 1 choice was...

This was a really enjoyable one to record and to look back on the heydays of a few players, and also one in the eye for those who say me and old Roy agree all the time (which, to be fair, is often true).



We explain our definition of "important" in the pod, but for anyone who wants to chip in their own ideas below and doesn't fancy listening, here's a rough outline: it's not necessarily the "best" (most technically gifted) players, but the ones who've played the most important roles across those years. If someone did something amazing in a small amount of games, that would be outweighed by someone who was excellent for a longer period.

It's not limited to players Wilder signed - just players who were here when he was. It's also not constrained by your usual "Best XI" stuff, so doesn't necessarily need to include a keeper, for example - and if you wanted to have five strikers, you can absolutely do that.

Thanks very much if you do listen, or indeed if you just happened to read this far. You can also get it on Apple and Spotify.
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This was excellent! Very enjoyable listen and can't really fault the final top 10! Well played Beans and Roygbiv !
 
Coutts in the top 5 is my shout, Beans nearly had his career ended by not having him in the top 10.

Freeman was far more important than Bladock too imo.
 
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