Heckingbottom/Wilder

[Deleted member 23679]

I think most people have been pleasantly suprised by Hecky so far. I've seen plenty of similarities between him and Chris Wilder but plenty of subtle differences.

The big similarities are that both know what the squads strengths are and play a style of the football that suits the squad. They both had the team well drilled in to a very nuanced formation and style of play that combines strength and aggression with an easy on the eye style of football that both probe and press to find an opening whilst at the same time being capable of breaking out with speed and precision from the back. Under Wilder when we was getting results the football was enjoyable to watch, just because of how good we are on the ball, and I've had the same enjoyment so far from Heckyball as I did from Wilderball. They are both managers you can watch and when they make substitutions that you can understand the reasoning behind.

The differences are that Hecky seems a lot more hands on that Wilder was. I always felt like Alan Knill was the brains behind the operation and Wilder was the front man for the managerial team, whilst Hecky is a lot more hands on. Hecky doesn't seem to have the same charisma and outgoing nature as Wilder did (Wilder, Warnock and Bassett all had this trait) and is generally quieter, and more measured in his public statements.

I also think another fantastic trait that both Hecky and Wilder share is that they both don't seem to be satisfied when things are going well and are always striving to improve, and improve the side and drive things forward rather than resting on their laurels. You can also tell that the players are motivated and look like they are being challenged to get better by the management which is a great trait to have,.

Understandably I was disappointed like every other Blade when things unravelled as quickly as they did last season under Wilder, and the recriminations and fall out that followed, just as I was completely underwhelmed by the dross that Jokanovic served up, but I'm beginning to feel like that now the dust has settled from last season, the players have got a bit of confidence back and shaken off the hangover from last season. I'm also starting to feel more and more excited about United having dropped on a manager who is one of the most highly qualified coaches within the game, who has got a clear idea of what we wants to do, has a point to prove and has got the potential to become one of the best managers this club has ever had.

 

[guancheblade]

I'm curious to know what makes you think Heckingbottom is more hands on than Wilder was? Genuine question

 

[PokerBlade]

Always have to preface my views on managers by saying:

I thought Weir would come good.
I thought Adkins was a fantastic appointment.
I thought Wilder was one of the worst choices we'd ever made.
I thought Jokanovic would play exciting football and, at worst, be entertaining.
My track record of managerial predictions has been god awful.

With that said, I didn't want Heckingbottom and I still have my doubts. While it's not easy to turn a team around when they've been shot of confidence for over a season he has inherited a squad that was backed to waltz this division. In terms of managerial decisions so far...not sure he's had to do much. He's gone back to a system the players knew and he's got them to care less about possession and more about the tempo. It's working a charm but it's mostly back to what we were doing under Wilder with the exception of crossing it earlier. He hasn't made any signings yet to judge him on aside from Goode on loan and a reserve keeper. Again, that's not a mark against him but it's not one for him either.

Results wise, no one could realistically have asked for better from any manager. Entertainment wise, we've had a couple of scruffy games but the football we're playing is, to me at least, exciting to watch. We're creating chances and the quality of some of our goals of late has been outrageous - we're scoring teams goals again, we're hitting teams hard by winning the ball high up the pitch, we're getting it into the box quickly and with purpose. Can't fault him at all on that front.

So I might be the worst type of cynic for saying that I don't know if he's done much yet other than revert to a system another manager laid out the groundwork for. There'll be a lot of questions depending on how this season pans out and when we have a turnover of players in the Summer and he has to start building his own squad.

What I will say is that so far he's absolutely smashed expectations where it counts. The results have been phenomenal and he's got me looking forward to every game again. That last part being the big one for me. I'm alright with Championship football so long as we're a team that wants to play this way.

Comparing him to Wilder, I don't think that fair yet. Wilder put together a side of his own players. He brought in the likes of JOC, Fleck, Moore and so on to get us up. We haven't seen Heckingbottom put his own squad together. In terms of system, Heckingbottom is doing a bit of a copycat job. There's his own hallmarks (the early crossing, shooting more from range) but it's not the same as bringing in a new system entirely with innovative roles like attacking centre halves.

I don't know where Heckingbottom will take us. For now I'll just praise him in saying he's bought himself time and a lot of good faith from people like me who had written him off. Hopefully I can add him to list of awful predictions I've made.

 

[OnmiEdson]

Drinks less Peroni so is more coherent/articulate in the hands on session perhaps???
Also it’s not Wilder or Knill now it’s
Hecky & Stuart & Jack with clearly defined roles and responsibilities- maybe less tension about being in an out of the Wilder club
Just feels like a united dressing room now, at least from the outside
Quite an achievement given the opaque vortex which is now the relationship with the board side of things

 

[Millhousesblade1889]

Can’t compare Wilder & Heckingbottom. One guided us to the Premiership from league one, the other has had a fantastic start, but achieved nothing.

Heckingbottom has essentially reinstalled the good work that Wilder had put together before he spat his dummy out.

Im sure we’re all extremely happy with what we are seeing at the moment, let’s not compare.

 

[Champagneblade]

It would be nice to see Hecky start to get some credit on his own merits to be fair.

I know he does to an extent, but without caveating that it's closer to what Chris did as if all he's doing is a default replication of what Wilder would have done.

I don't want to diminish anything Chris achieved but with the overlapping centre backs there was a certain formulaic nature to how our attacks were constructed and on the flip side the negatives of Wilderball could be frustrating with players just messing about playing triangles on the wing which petered out.

It may we'll be personnel driven but there seems to be more off the cuff play under Hecky. Be that Gibbs-White or N'Diaye as examples. They seem a lot more encouraged to do their thing rather than fitting to a formulaic pattern.

We're also not playing 3-5-2 as Wilder had it, it's more of a 3-4-2-1 sometimes dropping to the 3-4-1-2 that Wilder dropped on the Prem. We've shown quite a bit of tactical flexibility and we are not especially playing overlapping centre backs as the main feature but the defenders are given licence to roam, even Egan at times, though less so. So I so think it is a bit lazy, no offence at you PokerBlade , to just say he's doing a Chris. He has intentionally varied the approach and tried a few things to keep players fresh. Like all, it always looks better when you are picking up results!

Sometimes a person is just the right person at the right time and certainly the football at the moment is winning and enjoyable.

May it long continue!

 

[Ricardo Mantelban]

I think Hecky is more hands on in the training. I can’t recall seeing Wilder say much or get involved with keep ball etc during the training videos we see.

 

[Swannyblade]

Far too premature to be comparing PH and CW. However I do think PH is perfect for us given our current circumstances.
His passion appears to be coaching (as oppose to everything else that comes along with football management) and what we have is a group of players with potential who have been under-performing for the last 18 months. What we don't have are funds for transfers to overhaul the squad and instill a completely different style of play (sorry Slav, you were sold one unfortunately). Hopefully the coaching prowess of PH will continue to unlock the potential of this squad and maybe we could be looking at another promotion - at this point we can start to compare the achievements of PH and CW.

 

[PokerBlade]

It would be nice to see Hecky start to get some credit on his own merits to be fair.

I know he does to an extent, but without caveating that it's closer to what Chris did as if all he's doing is a default replication of what Wilder would have done.

I don't want to diminish anything Chris achieved but with the overlapping centre backs there was a certain formulaic nature to how our attacks were constructed and on the flip side the negatives of Wilderball could be frustrating with players just messing about playing triangles on the wing which petered out.

It may we'll be personnel driven but there seems to be more off the cuff play under Hecky. Be that Gibbs-White or N'Diaye as examples. They seem a lot more encouraged to do their thing rather than fitting to a formulaic pattern.

We're also not playing 3-5-2 as Wilder had it, it's more of a 3-4-2-1 sometimes dropping to the 3-4-1-2 that Wilder dropped on the Prem. We've shown quite a bit of tactical flexibility and we are not especially playing overlapping centre backs as the main feature but the defenders are given licence to roam, even Egan at times, though less so. So I so think it is a bit lazy, no offence at you PokerBlade , to just say he's doing a Chris. He has intentionally varied the approach and tried a few things to keep players fresh. Like all, it always looks better when you are picking up results!

Sometimes a person is just the right person at the right time and certainly the football at the moment is winning and enjoyable.

May it long continue!

None taken given the woeful assessments I've made of new managers in the past. I think it's fair to point out the system has been fluid, but the system wasn't always so rigid under Wilder either.

I know there's a lot more to football management than armchair managers like me will ever understand. All I'm saying is that at face value what Hecky has done isn't that far off what most on this board had been saying to do: switch back to a more familiar formation, pick up the pace, gerritinbox. No doubt that's a lot easier to say than it is to execute, and in terms of execution Heckingbottom has been close to flawless. I'm just saying it's not tactical genius so far either. Like I said, it's not a mark against him, it just limits the credit I can give to him so far in terms of tactics.

It's all academic for now anyway. The form we're on is unreal, the standard of play is high, expectations were dropped sufficiently low by the first part of the season, so this is one of those times in football where I can sit back and enjoy each game as it comes. If the manager were to pull off what was unthinkable when he took over...well then I'll be singing his unmitigated praises.

 

[Old Programme seller]

I always got the impression that CW had the charisma to get players to run through walls etc a bit like Harry Bassett when players/fans/management stop believing in him then that’s when he’s done, I’m not so sure about Heckys more measured approach to man management it’s different to Wilder‘s, the only similarity I can see are the formations my impression of how we play is different as we’re faster at getting the ball forward dare I say a bit ‘long ball’ sometimes.

 

[blade too long]

good management is about good delegation. Having good people you trust around you .
What Hecky has done really well on is his aides, McCall was a masterstroke as the communication between the staff and players has been maximised so everyone knows exactly what's required of them.
At times we've looked aimless early season but we are using joined up writing as we write this chapter
footballers always look much better when they enjoy their work and theres a lot of smiles around just now

 

[Sheffsteel]

Can’t compare Wilder & Heckingbottom. One guided us to the Premiership from league one, the other has had a fantastic start, but achieved nothing.

Heckingbottom has essentially reinstalled the good work that Wilder had put together before he spat his dummy out.

Im sure we’re all extremely happy with what we are seeing at the moment, let’s not compare.

Totally agree.

To date Heckingbottom can be compared more to Kevin Blackwell...than Wilder.

In his 1st season Blackwell had no pressure and he was excellent playing attacking football.
He gave us our club back as we reverted back to the high tempo percentage football Warnock style which earned us a place in the play-off final.

The good will didn't last and in his 2nd season it all went a bit pear shaped....Hecky could end up exactly the same.

 

[FallowfieldBlade]

I think most people have been pleasantly suprised by Hecky so far. I've seen plenty of similarities between him and Chris Wilder but plenty of subtle differences.

The big similarities are that both know what the squads strengths are and play a style of the football that suits the squad. They both had the team well drilled in to a very nuanced formation and style of play that combines strength and aggression with an easy on the eye style of football that both probe and press to find an opening whilst at the same time being capable of breaking out with speed and precision from the back. Under Wilder when we was getting results the football was enjoyable to watch, just because of how good we are on the ball, and I've had the same enjoyment so far from Heckyball as I did from Wilderball. They are both managers you can watch and when they make substitutions that you can understand the reasoning behind.

The differences are that Hecky seems a lot more hands on that Wilder was. I always felt like Alan Knill was the brains behind the operation and Wilder was the front man for the managerial team, whilst Hecky is a lot more hands on. Hecky doesn't seem to have the same charisma and outgoing nature as Wilder did (Wilder, Warnock and Bassett all had this trait) and is generally quieter, and more measured in his public statements.

I also think another fantastic trait that both Hecky and Wilder share is that they both don't seem to be satisfied when things are going well and are always striving to improve, and improve the side and drive things forward rather than resting on their laurels. You can also tell that the players are motivated and look like they are being challenged to get better by the management which is a great trait to have,.

Understandably I was disappointed like every other Blade when things unravelled as quickly as they did last season under Wilder, and the recriminations and fall out that followed, just as I was completely underwhelmed by the dross that Jokanovic served up, but I'm beginning to feel like that now the dust has settled from last season, the players have got a bit of confidence back and shaken off the hangover from last season. I'm also starting to feel more and more excited about United having dropped on a manager who is one of the most highly qualified coaches within the game, who has got a clear idea of what we wants to do, has a point to prove and has got the potential to become one of the best managers this club has ever had.

I dont think you can compare wilder and hecky they are in different leagues as managers IMO

Wilder is the best manager we have ever had , and he has shown yet again how good he is at boro he should have been getting jobs like villa/everton but he isnt as fashionable as others

Hecky is doing great and is a very competent manager , but he has been able to come in and do so well because of the foundations wilder built in terms of formation/squad etc

 

[Stretch]

Whatever happens from this point on, and no matter how well we may or may not do this season.

Hecky has well and truly snapped the players out of the deep coma that they fell into during PL S2. Something that neither Wilder or Slav could seemingly manage.

For that alone, he deserves a lot of credit. On a personal note, I am also really enjoying watching us again, something that I haven't experienced for a while.

 

[PageHallBlade]

I bet Hecky not as fucking mardy as Wilder

 

[tomtheblade]

There are various obvious comparisons - Wilder because we by and large have the same team and formation as he did, and Blackwell because they both fit the profile of a ship-steadying appointment after an ambitious failure following relegation (Robson/Jokanovic).
The issue lies in the tendency to over-compare, in the sense that the managers are evaluated in an absolute sense in all aspects, rather than in just particular ones. I find the latter to be a more useful way to analyse them, and just because a comparison seems obvious, doesn't mean that it is the most relevant one.

It may seem strange, and maybe people will disagree, but the way I see Heckingbottom is a bit more like Danny Wilson. He's an underwhelming appointment taking the reigns following relegation, and his success lies in not much more than just making sensible decisions, getting the fundamentals right and generally being measured and a steady hand on the wheel. When you have a team that does, despite what many think, have quality for this league (though perhaps not as much as we would like), then often that's really all that's required for a good performance, which is what we're seeing on the pitch since he took over.

There's a lot to like about Hecky imo, even outside of our recent success, though that is obviously the most important ingredient.
I think he is capable of developing talented youngsters whilst seemingly having the respect of the senior squad. He talks in a measured manner and is less bombastic than Wilder which- though I loved it of Chris- is also no bad thing. He's also made the move to 'bigger clubs' before in going from Barnsley to Leeds and got burned for it, and so I suspect is less likely to get stolen away by another club. Maybe he's not the most revolutionary manager but that's ok- long term stability is just as important, and I think he's a good enough coach to take us places without the risk of leaving at the first sniff of interest from elsewhere.

That's more speculative on my part but sits with what i've seen so far, he's been with us for a while as youth coach so i think will appreciate the position he now occupies and will make the most of it. Optimistic perhaps, but after a year and a half of depressing rubbish i'll take what hope I can get, and he's given me much more of it than i've seen since the end of the 19/20 season.

 

[SB_90]

Something that neither Wilder or Slav could seemingly manage

you cannot compare behind closed doors football with what we have now

 

[SB_90]

Heckingbottom has hugely surprised me, it like Ranieri at Leicester. when we all expected it to be awful & we were spectacularly wrong. i wonder if its more a team effort between heckingbottom McCall & Lester

 

[Stretch]

you cannot compare behind closed doors football with what we have now

Of course, but Slav had the crowds, and Wilder had almost a season and a half to sort it. Other teams adapted.

 

[Old Programme seller]

However successful CW has been he also became very unsuccessful very quickly after spending a hell of a lot of money Hecky hasn’t spent anything, hasn’t done anything and hasn’t been here long so you can’t compare

 

[ucandomagic]

Chris Wilder is a highly-stressed egotistical leader of men. His character flaws are adored by those who would follow him over the top when the whistle blew.

Paul Heckingbottom is an understated cerebral, analytical teacher.

I have had no experience of these types of characters in sport, but I have in business. I have experienced Wilder-types twice, who powered their companies to success but then didn’t know how to manage them when they got there. The first exploded completely, as self-belief led to an irrational assumption of infallibility. The second was rescued by a venture capitalist appointing a highly efficient and pragmatic management team.

People like Chris win battles, not wars. People like Paul smooth the turbulence that is often left behind. A creative world needs both.

I hesitate to say it, but Boris Bunter and Dishy Rishi could be a political example of the same.

Magic Doesn’t Move in Straight Lines.

 

[YouFUMS]

Let's not forget that Hecky took over from BDW with 11 games to go in the Prem last season.
He got 3 wins from those 11 games which equated to 0.82 points per game. Over the course of the season it would have been enough to keep us up.
If we had started this season with him in charge, then I believe that we would be challenging Fulham for that top spot.

 

[ThatJa]

You can look at clubs, managers, players but simply and truly some people just "fit" a certain club. Slav our first ever foreign manager, did appallingly bad, but with other clubs such as Watford, Fulham who have had foreign players year in year out, he was successful. You can see why he would be successful there and not here.

Likewise with Hecky, he managed Leeds, and was shocking, managed Barnsley and wasn't too bad. Hibernian too but its in Scotland, so we won't discuss that. But its easy to see why Hecky is having a bit of success as manager here, because we consist of mainly English, Scottish and Irish players, bar Berge.

I think the biggest advantage Hecky has here, is he was behind the scenes, watching from afar but still in the same building as players, sharing training pitches etc. He knew the foundation was set, he was able to carry that on. He adopted the same formation, the same players bar one or two, had the hallmarks of success already ready for him to grab.

 

[EddieColquhoun]

Heckingbottom has essentially reinstalled the good work that Wilder had put together before he spat his dummy out.

A tad harsh on Hecky. He's got Brewster, Robinson, Norwood and especially Billy performing and integrated Academy graduates Ndiaye, RND and Jebbo into the squad (Ndiaye on the day that CW quit), as well as trying to get rid of some poor signings.

 

[HOT CURRIE 10]

Totally agree.

To date Heckingbottom can be compared more to Kevin Blackwell...than Wilder.

In his 1st season Blackwell had no pressure and he was excellent playing attacking football.
He gave us our club back as we reverted back to the high tempo percentage football Warnock style which earned us a place in the play-off final.

The good will didn't last and in his 2nd season it all went a bit pear shaped....Hecky could end up exactly the same.

Love the optimism ! How can you compare him with Blackwell ? The football was shitty awful with Blackwell,in a short time Hecky has turned us around again with lovely quick passing football and improving some very average players inherited. Some of the football I’ve seen lately has been when Utd were at their peak under wilder and that is without the roaming centre backs. He’s had no money and had to offload players to drastically reduce the wage bill,let’s enjoy the resurgence,blades supporters are not easy to please .

 

[Millhousesblade1889]

A tad harsh on Hecky. He's got Brewster, Robinson, Norwood and especially Billy performing and integrated Academy graduates Ndiaye, RND and Jebbo into the squad (Ndiaye on the day that CW quit), as well as trying to get rid of some poor signings.

100% now they're back in the previous system they're performing to a high standard. He's also been really good at integrating youngsters into the squad.....but that doesn't take away that he hasn't achieved anything yet other than a strong patch of form. Let's judge him on long-term success there's no need to compare at this stage.

 

[nopigfansintown]

Wilder had a team full of Championship and league one quality players that he guided to ninth in the premier league, predominantly due to a bespoke formation and an expertly drilled, motivated and hyper fit team. When guy injuries came in it undermined the system completely and resulted us being a 3-5-2 by numbers team. Of course the quality of player on our books became very obvious then; we were trying to outdo teams with the same system with massively inferior players. The two players on our books that possibly had Premier League attribute also got season ending injuries. We had some players with potential to make the grade: Bogle, Brewster, Moose etc but they weren't and may never be ready. They were projects. The plan from the first was to expect relegation, but come back in quick fashion with a team of developing players that could add value and help us stay there. The Prince and Wilder fell out as the plan changed once the writing was on the wall. Maybe this was slightly justified with the Covid losses, but hey ho.

The club made a disastrous decision to appoint Slav, a guy that played a really open style predominantly due to the quality of players he inherited or had had bought for him. Huge wages, huge talent and a really open, expansive style. Anybody who watched his teams closely could see quite easily that they rarely had control of the game; they just outscored the opposition due to the massive talent differential. The structure of his teams was never convincing. This was very obvious in the 5-4 game at Bramall Lane against a Couttsless united. When he managed in the Prem and people had equal or better players, the inevitable happened. The United team that came down needed a left centreback, a goalkeeper (Rambo replacement) and one or two centre mids (if Berge went). Many players that left in January should've gone in the Summer.

Slav exposed himself early with the formation change. A good manager plays a formation that suits the players at his disposal. Slav was an ideologue who was fixated on his orthordox system that suited very few in our squad. It was like he'd never seen United play before and couldn't identify the tweaks that needed to be made. Even when the likes of Davies came in to fix the major problem. The writing was on the wall for me when he was demanding six to eight players in January. This appointment was a big mistake mistake by the board/management that, by their own admission, cost us our January budget. To my mind they wasted the Slav/ his team money, and a lot of other money by not culling the squad in the summer. It was shocking how many fans completely wrote of the United squad due to Slav's incompetence. In hindsight it's embarrassing really.

Last season Hecky tweaked United's style to more of a counter attacking style. We played often with three utilising our pace (Osborn, Jebbo, Burke) to get us up the pitch earlier. This was, in a way, an admission that we could no longer employ our previous system successfully due to injuries. I believe if we played it all season we'd have still gone down, but it (or another counter attacking system) should've been tried earlier by Wilder imo. Hecky has has gone back to basics this season. He's employing a squad that had serial successes with this style of play. The LCB has been largely fixed, and more ball playing midfielders have been brought in or recovered from injury. We haven't really got the athletic ball winner most of us wanted, which means that Hecky often backs the middle with another player when out of possession. That's the only notable change. For me, if we'd played this system from the start of the season under Wilder or Hecky, we'd have won the league.

 

[Yewsman]

A tad harsh on Hecky. He's got Brewster, Robinson, Norwood and especially Billy performing and integrated Academy graduates Ndiaye, RND and Jebbo into the squad (Ndiaye on the day that CW quit), as well as trying to get rid of some poor signings.

I think one big difference is that Hecky seems potentially better at bringing young players into the first team/squad. I say potentially as there is still some way to go with the likes of Jebbo, Gordon and maybe now Peck but the signs are good with Ndiaye, RND and persevering with Brewster. I always felt that CW was too reluctant to use the young players and show them there was a route through to the first team.

 

[wadblade]

Wilder v Heckingbottom
Lets just keep it simple, I believe the club is going through its Shankly to Paisley period

 

[Nagima]

In my view its a bit too early to do a comparison.
Hecky is doing a good job and getting results.
The thing with getting results is that we view performances as being better due to being happy to win. I think there is a bit of a way to go before we can think that we are playing really good football. There have been quite a few games where we struggled to score in comparison to our dominance.

I like Hecky. He is positive and doesn't talk bullshit in his interviews and it is clear that he is a decent coach. The tricky bit for him in the long run will be to get what he needs from the board.
In the short term it is when we have a rough patch as every team does. Will he keep calm and stick to his plan and will all of the players stay on board with what he is doing.

We have a solid chance for a playoff spot and so far and he deserves a lot of credit for what he has done so far.