Good article by Michael Cox in The Athletic

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Cox - Why Sheffield United are the best promoted team of Modern Times

By common consent, there are two obvious candidates for this year’s LMA Manager of the Year award.

The first is Jurgen Klopp, for his achievement in taking Liverpool to their first Premier League title and securing the trophy with a record number of matches remaining.

The second is Chris Wilder, for leading Sheffield United to a top-half finish in his first Premier League season.

It’s always difficult to compare performances in two radically different situations and the list of past winners of the LMA award always looks somewhat curious. Arsene Wenger led Arsenal to the double in his first full campaign in English football, but lost out in the voting to Southampton’s Dave Jones, who guided Southampton to 12th place in the Premier League that season. Jose Mourinho has famously never won the award, being beaten by David Moyes (Everton finished fourth), Steve Coppell (Championship winner with Reading) and Eddie Howe (Bournemouth won the second tier title) in the three seasons he won the Premier League.

Moyes, incidentally, has taken the trophy home three times, second only to Sir Alex Ferguson.

It’s clear, therefore, that the LMA like to select a fresh face, an outsider, when possible.

So that’s things settled, then.

Klopp should win it.

Yes, that’s right, Klopp would be the newcomer, because Wilder got the award last season.

His achievements in guiding Sheffield United to promotion were considered superior not merely to those of Daniel Farke, whose Norwich side beat them to the Championship title, but also superior to Pep Guardiola’s record in taking Manchester City to an unprecedented domestic treble, and Klopp’s in winning the European Cup.

It not merely summarises what an extraordinary achievement it was to get Sheffield United promoted in the first place, but also emphasises his performance this season too. With a very similar group of players, Wilder has achieved a top-half top-flight finish with a squad that wasn’t even expected to gain promotion from the Championship.

With two matches remaining, Sheffield United are unarguably up there with the best ever Premier League newcomers.

Below is a list of the top 10 finishes by promoted sides since the move to a 20-team division in 1995-96 (with apologies to fans of Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest, who recorded third-place finishes in 1993-94 and 1994-95 respectively, but the 22-team league makes comparisons more difficult).

The most notable thing is Sheffield United’s superb defensive record — barring a catastrophe in the two remaining matches, it will be the best goals-conceded tally of newly-promoted clubs in the 20-team Premier League era. It will probably end up being superior to the record of some title winners — on three occasions, Manchester United have become champions when conceding 43 or more goals.

In terms of comparisons to promoted sides, Wilder’s Sheffield United might yet slip behind various teams who recorded a ninth-placed finish — they could finish 10th at worst — but in points terms, they have already surpassed their tallies. With matches against Everton and Southampton remaining, they’re likely to surpass Coppell’s Reading side of 2006-07, and could climb alongside the likes of Sunderland 1999-2000 and Wolverhampton Wanderers 2018-19. Only the Ipswich Town side of 2000-01 remains beyond them.

And yet in a different sense, Wilder’s achievement is greater than that of Peter Reid at Sunderland, of Nuno Espirito Santo with Wolves, or even George Burley for Ipswich — for the odds have been stacked against Sheffield United this season to a far greater extent.

Why Wilder’s performance is greater than Nuno’s with Wolves

There’s no doubt that Nuno has performed excellently — leading Wolves to win the second tier by nine points in his debut season, then taking them to Europa League qualification at the first time of asking a year ago and now pushing for the Champions League spots with two games to go. He has been, of course, boosted by calling upon players far beyond the usual capabilities of a newly-promoted side.

In their Portuguese midfielder Joao Moutinho, Wolves have a player capable of matching the great generation of Spanish playmakers at their peak; he’d won the Europa League, Ligue 1 and the 2016 European Championship before his arrival at Molineux. Goalkeeper Rui Patricio also played in that Euros triumph, while others were signed from clubs such as Benfica, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Monaco and Anderlecht. There were exceptions, of course — Matt Doherty came from Bohemians in Ireland — but this is quite a contrast from the clubs Sheffield United picked up their 2019-20 regulars from.

George Baldock was signed from MK Dons, John Fleck from Coventry, John Lundstram from Oxford United and David McGoldrick from Ipswich. Central midfielder Oliver Norwood had played in promotion-winning Brighton & Hove Albion and Fulham sides but wasn’t quite considered good enough for the Premier League on either occasion, so then won promotion for a third straight season with Sheffield United. Wilder stuck with him, and the Northern Ireland international proved one of his key players this season.

Sheffield United have spent money — in fact, they’ve broken their transfer record five times since sealing promotion to the top flight. But this is a genuine team, in the true sense of the word, rather than a collection of individuals. Even relegation strugglers have stars more likely to command a place at one of the “big six” — Jack Grealish, Emiliano Buendia, Nathan Ake — but not only are Sheffield United lacking those kind of names, they could probably withstand any departure without major problems.

Nuno accommodated top-class players superbly at Molineux but Wilder has turned a group of Championship-level players into a formidable Premier League side.

Why Wilder’s performance is greater than Reid’s with Sunderland

Despite Sheffield United’s highly unusual system, they haven’t been ‘found out’.

Think of Sunderland in that first season back in the Premier League in 1999-2000 and you probably remember their direct approach play — long balls to Niall Quinn, flick-ons, and Kevin Phillips running on to the second balls. Simple, but effective.

The problem, though, was opponents realised what Sunderland were up to and, while they were caught out by their directness the first time around, they didn’t make the same mistake in the return fixtures once we moved into the new millennium.

So, at the midway point of the season, Sunderland found themselves with an incredible 37 points, which put them in third place. It would have been unrealistic to expect Peter Reid’s side to maintain that form, but they subsequently went on a run of 11 matches without a victory. They collected only 21 points from the second half of the campaign, which meant 64 per cent of their points were won in its first half. They were able to surprise opponents early on, and then gradually fell away.

Wilder’s Sheffield United, however, have been consistent throughout the course of the campaign. They collected 29 points in the first half of the season, and 25 so far in the second half, with two matches remaining. They will, more or less, match the points total they had on Boxing Day.

But even this comparison doesn’t quite do justice to the different challenge Sheffield United face in 2019-20 compared to Sunderland two decades earlier. Back then, opposition scouting was minimal — many managers even considered it a sign of weakness to pay too much attention to the strengths of the other side. That was a technologically primitive age, before modern scouting tools enabled extensive video scouting, and before clubs had several analysts dedicated to preparing a dossier about upcoming opponents.

Sheffield United’s unique, innovative build-up play was scrutinised heavily even before their Premier League debut. On the opening day, Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe used a three-man defence against Wilder’s side to match that system.

Wilder didn’t have the honeymoon period which promoted sides 20 years ago enjoyed — he was up against it from the outset. Nevertheless, his side’s build-up play has proved complex and fluent enough to succeed, even when opponents know what’s coming.

Why Wilder’s performance is greater than Burley’s with Ipswich

Ipswich’s run to finishing fifth in 2000-01 was a truly remarkable achievement.

Much like Wilder’s Sheffield United, George Burley’s side retained the core of a team that had been steadily built over the previous couple of seasons. They played slick passing football with defenders comfortable on the ball, such as Mark Venus, while goalkeeper Richard Wright was briefly considered in the same light as Dean Henderson today — a future England No 1.

Ipswich didn’t drop off dramatically after Christmas the way Sunderland did the previous season — they recorded 33 points before and after the midway point to claim a place in the UEFA Cup for the following campaign.

That European run was highlighted by a first-leg victory over Inter Milan, although the stresses of competing in Europe meant their 2001-02 domestic form was disastrous. Notably, they didn’t win a single Premier League game between August 22 and December 21, more or less the period they were competing in Europe in midweek, and Burley was sacked in the October.

After elimination at the San Siro, their form recovered dramatically, before a sudden spring drop-off which meant they were consigned to relegation. Ipswich haven’t been back in the Premier League since — they’re now competing in the third tier for the first time since the 1950s.

Ipswich’s brilliant first season is slightly tempered by the knowledge of what came next. Wilder’s Sheffield United must avoid the same fate in 2020-21.

But more significant is the radically different financial situation upon these sides’ respective arrivals in the Premier League. Ipswich were starting with a minimal budget compared to most top-flight clubs, but the inequality wasn’t so stark as it is today. So, while Ipswich’s wage bill was modest, it represented 36 per cent of the highest wage bill in the Premier League and, more pertinently, 68 per cent of the Premier League average at that point. They were at a relative financial disadvantage, but they weren’t paupers.

Nearly two decades on, the picture has transformed radically. Not merely have the rich become much richer — Sheffield United’s wage bill is estimated to be around nine per cent of Manchester City’s — there’s also a sizeable gap to mid-table sides such as Crystal Palace, West Ham United, Southampton and Watford, who have been picking up Premier League revenue for several years.

Sheffield United’s wage bill is only around 23 per cent of the current average in the Premier League. Therefore, while they won’t match Ipswich’s points tally in 2000-01, they are punching above their weight to a greater extent.

To repeat those figures: Ipswich’s players were paid more than two-thirds of the top-flight average, Sheffield United’s less than a quarter.

When you consider that discrepancy, a difference of a few points looks less relevant, and Wilder’s achievement looks all the most remarkable.
 
I really like Michael Cox. Not only because he's championed us for a long time on various football podcasts, but he is genuinely knowledgeable on the subjects he speaks about. If he doesn't know, then he says so and when he does know, he can go on at length.

Could do with more like him as pundits, instead of folk like Souness who just guess.
 

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