Do other teams tend to under-perform against us?

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FMBlade1

FMBlade1

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Firstly of course it was a fantastic day and we should all be very proud seeing the team put in a strong professional performance.

Two things can be true at the same time however, and whilst it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace there is no denying that they didn't perform to their ability either as a team or individuals. I'm wondering why that might be. If someone had watched the two teams without knowing what league they were in they might assume we were one or maybe even two leagues above our opponents who had a supposed £80 million player up front.

For years we have (rightly) laughed at other fans for their arrogance before playing us then see them afterwards claim 'Sheffield are nothing special we were just especially crap'.

We aren't 'special' in terms of having 'star' players like Zaha, however we definitely are in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition. Nevertheless Palace and plenty of other teams were especially crap against us I think at times, and I wonder if there are more reasons to it rather than 'just' us playing really well.

To flip it over, when we were in League One we had the opposite problem. Teams who were having mediocre seasons like Fleetwood Crawley Shrewsbury etc would play out of their skin and put their best performances of the season when they played against us (according to their fans I recall). Why? Because we were a big scalp and biggest fixture of the year and it was a big draw coming to such a fine stadium.

Now I wonder if the opposite is true when established 'big name' teams come here, is it:

1. Complacency, due to the lack of 'big names' and our relatively lower stature in comparison to our opponents.
2. Lack of motivation to 'get stuck in'.
3. Defeatism before a ball had been kicked. I saw this when we played Reading last year, ok not the greatest of teams but they had some decent players but were absolutely pathetic, as good as we were.
4. Anything else?
5. A combination of some/all of these factors?
6. Not a valid theory at all, other teams don't tend to under perform against us particularly?

Interested to see other's perspective on this, UTB
 

I think other clubs and us fans sometimes don't realise how good CWAK and the team actually are. They deserve to be in the PL because they're good enough, its just took a while for them to establish that in their careers.
 
It’s a combination of things.

We are tactically superior and better prepared.
We target opposition threats and make sure they can’t perform to their potential.
We have spells of quick passing where we pin back the opposition overloading the wings so it looks like we have more players on the pitch.
Opposition players and fans quickly become demoralised because the game isn’t going to plan and we’re better then they expected.
 
Tunstall Fred said:
Yes, that’s the only reason we get anything
Click to expand...

Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Did you even read the OP? I said:

'it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace'

'the team put in a strong professional performance.'

'we definitely are [special] in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition.

'us playing really well.'
 
According to opposition fans, and most pundits for that matter, we were nowt special and they had an 'off' day.

I have noticed in the last few days a few pundits started to make noises that almost sound like 'we're quite good'. Could be a trick of the wind though.

We have superb tactics, players bought to play in a system and a few of them can play a bit. Why others fail to see most of this, sod knows.
 
FMBlade1 said:
Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Did you even read the OP? I said:

'the team put in a strong professional performance.'

'we definitely are [special] in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition.

'us playing really well.'
Click to expand...
You expect me to read your lengthy ramblings?

No then, it’s because we are the best side in the Premier League
 
They don’t underperform against us. We just totally nullify them.

It’s a combination of great tactics, rolling our sleeves up and working our arses off and having some good players who suit our system perfectly and know exactly what their jobs are.
 
FMBlade1 said:
Firstly of course it was a fantastic day and we should all be very proud seeing the team put in a strong professional performance.

Two things can be true at the same time however, and whilst it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace there is no denying that they didn't perform to their ability either as a team or individuals. I'm wondering why that might be. If someone had watched the two teams without knowing what league they were in they might assume we were one or maybe even two leagues above our opponents who had a supposed £80 million player up front.

For years we have (rightly) laughed at other fans for their arrogance before playing us then see them afterwards claim 'Sheffield are nothing special we were just especially crap'.

We aren't 'special' in terms of having 'star' players like Zaha, however we definitely are in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition. Nevertheless Palace and plenty of other teams were especially crap against us I think at times, and I wonder if there are more reasons to it rather than 'just' us playing really well.

To flip it over, when we were in League One we had the opposite problem. Teams who were having mediocre seasons like Fleetwood Crawley Shrewsbury etc would play out of their skin and put their best performances of the season when they played against us (according to their fans I recall). Why? Because we were a big scalp and biggest fixture of the year and it was a big draw coming to such a fine stadium.

Now I wonder if the opposite is true when established 'big name' teams come here, is it:

1. Complacency, due to the lack of 'big names' and our relatively lower stature in comparison to our opponents.
2. Lack of motivation to 'get stuck in'.
3. Defeatism before a ball had been kicked. I saw this when we played Reading last year, ok not the greatest of teams but they had some decent players but were absolutely pathetic, as good as we were.
4. Anything else?
5. A combination of some/all of these factors?
6. Not a valid theory at all, other teams don't tend to under perform against us particularly?

Interested to see other's perspective on this, UTB
Click to expand...

Two swallows don't 'make a summer' or do they?

We are extremely well organised and work very hard. We are also realistic and disciplined.

We are hard to play against and now we can even change things around if we go behind as we have a great bench.

P.L. 'cliques' are beginning to understand how Wilder was 'Manager of the Year' with the Norwich manager close behind.

Some of these lower-half Prem teams have the great problem that they believe their own hype/publicity and it's too late by the time they start to realise they have to match us in workrate and hunger. Set of preening, diving prima-donnas if truth be known. Overpaid and not exactly complacent, just think they are better than they are.

I can't think of one Wilder player who struts around and fusses over trivial incidents. We've started to take the easy 'push' in the back but it is a 'gimmee' in the P.L.. Other than that we don't cheat or 'bleat' to the ref all along.

We are not too proud to defend when we have to either. We have pace and stamina up front. Boy we can break quickly - say it again. Boy we can break bloody quickly and incisively.
 
SouthEssexBlade said:
According to opposition fans, and most pundits for that matter, we were nowt special and they had an 'off' day.

I have noticed in the last few days a few pundits started to make noises that almost sound like 'we're quite good'. Could be a trick of the wind though.

We have superb tactics, players bought to play in a system and a few of them can play a bit. Why others fail to see most of this, sod knows.
Click to expand...

Because they are wearing blinkers, some still give us the tag, big strong physical Sheffield United.

Pundits aren’t bothered about us
 
I thought Hodgson was very open and honest post-match but focused on his own team's shortcomings, rather than praise for us.

Maybe even he hadn't fully absorbed the match so soon after the game. We were very effective and controlled Roy.
 
As to how other teams see us, don't know. I imagine a few may regard Sheff Utd as an easy run out and get a little bit baffled when it doesn't play out that way but I doubt that's a major factor. As for other fans, I definitely think a lot of them regard us as an easy three points based on whatever combo of assumption, history, lazy punditry and whatever else goes through their heads. When it doesn't work out the way they assumed it would, they see it as a wasted opportunity and turn on their team rather than considering that they were wrong i the first place.

A lot of pundits continue not to give a shit about us and can't say I care. There are a handful that seem to rate us a bit and a few more that have started peppering their views with the odd positive seeing as we're 2 games in without conceding 20 and having half our squard sent off. Those I think are just hedging their bets for when they're trying to convince broadcasters to give them another gig.
 

FMBlade1 said:
Firstly of course it was a fantastic day and we should all be very proud seeing the team put in a strong professional performance.

Two things can be true at the same time however, and whilst it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace there is no denying that they didn't perform to their ability either as a team or individuals. I'm wondering why that might be. If someone had watched the two teams without knowing what league they were in they might assume we were one or maybe even two leagues above our opponents who had a supposed £80 million player up front.

For years we have (rightly) laughed at other fans for their arrogance before playing us then see them afterwards claim 'Sheffield are nothing special we were just especially crap'.

We aren't 'special' in terms of having 'star' players like Zaha, however we definitely are in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition. Nevertheless Palace and plenty of other teams were especially crap against us I think at times, and I wonder if there are more reasons to it rather than 'just' us playing really well.

To flip it over, when we were in League One we had the opposite problem. Teams who were having mediocre seasons like Fleetwood Crawley Shrewsbury etc would play out of their skin and put their best performances of the season when they played against us (according to their fans I recall). Why? Because we were a big scalp and biggest fixture of the year and it was a big draw coming to such a fine stadium.

Now I wonder if the opposite is true when established 'big name' teams come here, is it:

1. Complacency, due to the lack of 'big names' and our relatively lower stature in comparison to our opponents.
2. Lack of motivation to 'get stuck in'.
3. Defeatism before a ball had been kicked. I saw this when we played Reading last year, ok not the greatest of teams but they had some decent players but were absolutely pathetic, as good as we were.
4. Anything else?
5. A combination of some/all of these factors?
6. Not a valid theory at all, other teams don't tend to under perform against us particularly?

Interested to see other's perspective on this, UTB
Click to expand...

Wilder and Knill outsmarted both Bournemouth and Palace tactically.

Bournemouth have loads of pacey front players. They counter very well. In terms of creativity, against a team that defends in numbers, they are average.

We kept a solid shape and prevented them from countering.

Palace are well organised and good at defending deep. They have a couple of players that are likely to create chances on the break, even if their line up and mentality is defensive. Hence a good away record and poor home record.

We let them have the majoritiy of possession, again kept a solid shape and were all over their individual flair players. This reduced them to the mediocre team they are in most home games.

It could have been different. If a s24su vote had decided our team selection I think we could have played right into the hands of both Bournemouth and Palace.

Wilder and Knill so far - 9,5/10 for me.
 
FMBlade1 said:
Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Did you even read the OP? I said:

'it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace'

'the team put in a strong professional performance.'

'we definitely are [special] in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition.

'us playing really well.'
Click to expand...

I'm not seeing the reductio in your OP.

Anyway, often fans are just wrong. Often they're making excuses to protect their ego. Oh, Palace weren't really outplayed by Sheffield United, they just had a bad day. Oh, Fleetwood weren't significantly worse than United, they just lack a bit of consistency or that one star player who made the difference that day, we'd have hammered them if we had a player like Sharp.

And since sometimes those kinds of excuses are actually true (see our loss to Villa from the late Snodgrass stunner) it's easy to fall back on them rather than think any deeper. It's like the Leeds away game. Their fans were ranting about how much more of the ball they had, how they had all the chances, but when you looked at the stats you saw they had 0 shots on target, meanwhile we had one that Basham should've scored, one that Basham did score, and one that forced a red card for the keeper. We thoroughly deserved it.

We are where we are because we've consistently bested our opposition over three seasons. Teams often appear to have an "off-day" because we control games so well. Yesterday we doubled up on Zaha and frustrated him to the point he was throwing a tantrum in the first half. They couldn't handle us when we pressed high. They couldn't find a single threatening pass when we sat back. The Palace fans can come up with whatever excuses they want, and they can laugh at me for saying this about a 1-0 scoreline, but yesterday was a very comfortable victory.
 
BladeTillIDie said:
I think other clubs and us fans sometimes don't realise how good CWAK and the team actually are. They deserve to be in the PL because they're good enough, its just took a while for them to establish that in their careers.
Click to expand...

I don't think for one second that the opposition scouting and management doesn't know how good Wilder and Knill are. The issue seems to be coming up with a suitable plan to counteract the now-famous 'overlapping centre backs' but let's face it, that's only about 10% of our play. The rest is players drilled relentlessly into being part of a team (possibly the most overlooked aspect of football tactics) and a group which is absolutely United, in more ways than one. I can't help but see this as a good thing.

Football fans are a different matter. There's always going to be one element which pigeonholes us as unsophisticated cloggers because they saw us under Warnock, another element who remember Bassett's days and think we just hit the front man as soon as possible, a third element who think we're a lower league side because we were in League One when Instagram launched and a further element who don't like us because they don't like our fans. Let's be honest, the same can be said for our fans when talking about other sides - the whole Bournemouth don't deserve to be a PL side or Leicester are a midtable team view.
 
I think what it comes down to is that there are different ways to counter your opposition, whoever it may be.

You can 'let them worry about us', ie play your game and simply defend as well as possible when they get forward without designing anything specific to counter their threats. This works if your players are vastly superior to theirs.

Alternatively, you can set out to stop them. Reset your shape, tactics and style to counter their play and focus on their threats and how to stop them.

The problem is that most analysis doesnt go further than this binary understanding, and many think that managers set up one way or the other, which of course is complete bullshit, and especially so with us.

The truth is that we are so effective because we excel at both attacking and nullifying the opposition. How else would we be able to commit so many men forward and have overlapping CBs whilst achieving the best defensive record in the division?

Our forward play isnt the absolute best, but it doesnt have to be. It just has to be more productive than the opponents.

I think the reason other fans feel their team plays badly vs us is that in other games, they will witness their team play through the opposition, get chances etc. How well they do in said attacking play will determine whether they win, lose or draw, but either way they will feel like they had their opportunities to win and therefore played at least ok no matter the result.

Vs us they witness their team get nullified in their attacks, they dont witness then breaking through or managing near misses, therefore they 'played terribly'.

The truth is that they came up against a side who knew exactly how to stop them but was also effective in creating chances at the same time.
 
Bergen Blade said:
Wilder and Knill so far - 9,5/10 for me.
Click to expand...

Got to agree.......I was listening to the match preview on Talksport.
Alan Biggs said that Billy Sharp is expected to start the match and Biggs even said that he doubts Wilder is so heartless to prevent his captain and club legend
Billy Sharp from starting their first PL game back.

I agree was sure we’d be positive and go for it.
So that means starting with Sharp and Luke Freeman. Also expected the more defensive Lundstrom to be dropped.

Was really disappointed, almost angry when I saw such a negative starting 11.
Pre match I suggested that Wilder was trying to keep it 0-0 at half time, then would bring the big guns on early 2nd half.
Need to eat humble pie....i was wrong and Chris Wilder tactics were spot on.
Don’t think we were great compared to last season but we really did a number on Palace, their front 3 all looked shockingly poor.
 
I think it is just that teams and opposition fans totally underestimate us.We just let them continue to do so,play the way we know the Blades can,and results will speak for themselves.
 
FMBlade1 said:
Firstly of course it was a fantastic day and we should all be very proud seeing the team put in a strong professional performance.

Two things can be true at the same time however, and whilst it's an established fact that we played very well and tactically outsmarted Palace there is no denying that they didn't perform to their ability either as a team or individuals. I'm wondering why that might be. If someone had watched the two teams without knowing what league they were in they might assume we were one or maybe even two leagues above our opponents who had a supposed £80 million player up front.

For years we have (rightly) laughed at other fans for their arrogance before playing us then see them afterwards claim 'Sheffield are nothing special we were just especially crap'.

We aren't 'special' in terms of having 'star' players like Zaha, however we definitely are in terms of our manager team ethos and tactics which makes it hard for the opposition. Nevertheless Palace and plenty of other teams were especially crap against us I think at times, and I wonder if there are more reasons to it rather than 'just' us playing really well.

To flip it over, when we were in League One we had the opposite problem. Teams who were having mediocre seasons like Fleetwood Crawley Shrewsbury etc would play out of their skin and put their best performances of the season when they played against us (according to their fans I recall). Why? Because we were a big scalp and biggest fixture of the year and it was a big draw coming to such a fine stadium.

Now I wonder if the opposite is true when established 'big name' teams come here, is it:

1. Complacency, due to the lack of 'big names' and our relatively lower stature in comparison to our opponents.
2. Lack of motivation to 'get stuck in'.
3. Defeatism before a ball had been kicked. I saw this when we played Reading last year, ok not the greatest of teams but they had some decent players but were absolutely pathetic, as good as we were.
4. Anything else?
5. A combination of some/all of these factors?
6. Not a valid theory at all, other teams don't tend to under perform against us particularly?

Interested to see other's perspective on this, UTB
Click to expand...

I think we simply nullify other teams and leave them unable to play there game. The only teams I have seen stick to their game were Leeds away last year and we still won. They either don't change believing they can win with their normal system meaning they are then woefully ill prepared or they try and match up to us but fail to make it work, hence we make teams look awful.
 
I thinks it's a combination of two things:

1. Opposition fans not expecting much of us. We've seen that over the past couple of years. Maybe it's because of ignorance, obliviousness, because we don't spend as much as everyone else, arrogance that their side ought to be superior compared to a newly promoted side or because of historical views from Warnock, Bassett etc of how they assume we'll play, or a mixture of all of the above.

2. We're actually a really good, hungry, organised and tactically astute side. Point 1 doesn't allow for many fans to realise point 2. There is no coincidence here. West Brom away, Leeds at home, the Pigs at the Sty, are all really clear examples of how tactically adept we are. It's not that sides necessarily have an 'off day' and fail to show up, it's that we stifle them and don't let them play - there's a big, big difference.
 
Tunstall Fred said:
You expect me to read your lengthy ramblings?

No then, it’s because we are the best side in the Premier League
Click to expand...


You don’t need to read in full. Just like all the others. Suggests we’re shit in some way, then covers his back a bit, then, for the expected abuse/mocking, followed by a link to Wikipedia for a bit of Latin he’s just come across.

He usually ends up disagreeing with himself by the end of the thread the amount of backtracking he does.
 
Ok Bayingblade. Wolves are at home to the Mancs tonight. Not a factor, the away side? When it comes round to us?

Just carry on as though it's only us that matters. Don't even think about tactics, individuals, responding to the occasion?

Act and watch as though it's Scunthorpe? You are having a laugh.
 
tomtheblade said:
I think what it comes down to is that there are different ways to counter your opposition, whoever it may be.

You can 'let them worry about us', ie play your game and simply defend as well as possible when they get forward without designing anything specific to counter their threats. This works if your players are vastly superior to theirs.

Alternatively, you can set out to stop them. Reset your shape, tactics and style to counter their play and focus on their threats and how to stop them.

The problem is that most analysis doesnt go further than this binary understanding, and many think that managers set up one way or the other, which of course is complete bullshit, and especially so with us.

The truth is that we are so effective because we excel at both attacking and nullifying the opposition. How else would we be able to commit so many men forward and have overlapping CBs whilst achieving the best defensive record in the division?

Our forward play isnt the absolute best, but it doesnt have to be. It just has to be more productive than the opponents.

I think the reason other fans feel their team plays badly vs us is that in other games, they will witness their team play through the opposition, get chances etc. How well they do in said attacking play will determine whether they win, lose or draw, but either way they will feel like they had their opportunities to win and therefore played at least ok no matter the result.

Vs us they witness their team get nullified in their attacks, they dont witness then breaking through or managing near misses, therefore they 'played terribly'.

The truth is that they came up against a side who knew exactly how to stop them but was also effective in creating chances at the same time.
Click to expand...
This ^ our formation, style and tactics make sides look poor, simple as that and long may it continue. UTB
 

Sean Thornton said:
You don’t need to read in full. Just like all the others. Suggests we’re shit in some way, then covers his back a bit, then, for the expected abuse/mocking, followed by a link to Wikipedia for a bit of Latin he’s just come across.

He usually ends up disagreeing with himself by the end of the thread the amount of backtracking he does.
Click to expand...

Where have I suggested we're shit in some way? Sometimes I've been proven wrong about things and I actually acknowledge that, something to be commended rather than ridiculed.
 
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