Lack of critical thinking regard the manager situation

[Sheffsteel]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

 

[SW12 to S12 to S18]

Thank you, a well thought out and well written post. Some people do get worked up if not everyone has the same opinion as themselves.

 

[ShropsBlade]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

The reason people get riled up about wilder is because a lot of folk at s2 can’t see past lazy nostalgia shouts for a hecky replacement.If people actually come out with some genuine suggestions and reasons why a potential manager could improve our situation then maybe they wouldn’t get shot down.

I do agree with the logic of your post however and name calling for differences of opinion is not on.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Thank you, a well thought out and well written post. Some people do get worked up if not everyone has the same opinion as themselves.

Agree....when ever there's even the slightest emotive subject....it's proves almost impossible to discuss on a forum.

I've thought of a possible compromise situation regards Hecky's replacement.

Still think we should stick with Hecky and give him a chance but there's no denying the door is closing on him.
I'm keeping an open mind, it's possible he might turn it around, so he stays.
Also have some love for his backroom staff, would be sad to see McCall and Lester leave if Hecky goes but thats football, the show must go on.

You would expect the Prince to be weighing up his options as we speak and drawing up a short list of what's available.
Really think the issue with managers like Graham Potter, Hasenhuttle (the Southampton manager whatever his name is) or even the current Ipswich manager
is they probably think we're this little northern club punching above our weight, so wouldn't surprise me if they think they are too good for us.
They'd probably need paying a massive contract to tempt them. London always seems to be a massive pull, so it takes more money to tempt people away.

The best option, assuming Hecky keeps struggling might be to take a risk and appoint Wilder, not because I'm convinced Wilder will be a success.

I reckon appointing Wilder could be divisive and if we still go down, most of the fanbase will feel low and angry and insist Wilder is instantly sacked.
Where as if it's another manager the fanbase will be more understanding and give the new man a chance to go on a promotion run in the Championship.

So the best strategy for the Prince might be to approach Wilder and say "you do realise most of the fanbase don't want you and expect you to fail"
Do you think you can keep the team up? Wilder will probably say "yes, I'm confident".

So the Prince will explain that the tables have turned and now he holds the power and has other managers interested.
So if he has any sense he'll offer Wilder a relatively modestly (low) paid 8 month contract with a 1 million bonus if we stay up
and an option that the club make the decision on whether to extend his contract at the end of this season.

It will be like when Blackwell replaced Robson, basically a "take it or leave it" rubbish temporary contract but Wilder has no other decent options, his career has taken a nosedive and the chance to manage again in the Premier League (in the shop window) is an opportunity he can't refuse and the good news it wouldn't be a financial commitment for the Prince, basically the cheapest option possible with someone who knows and understands the club and players and has proven he can perform miracles.

 

[FatPaul]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

No one gives a fuck what you think!

 

[Sheffsteel]

No one gives a fuck what you think!

Made me laugh that, thanks

 

[nickwr37]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

Thoughtful write up with decent points raised.(West Ham had 7 corners btw, it's the proof reader in me)

What will be etc but we need to fire next weekend or I believe the time has come for a managerial change, unless Hecky resigns prior. As to Wilder back, I have no issues as he may be the right catalyst to ignite the team again. Would be interesting for a second time back home to his roots as manager.

 

[dc_blade]

Good post.

Our stats this season are pretty damning. Under the current owner we don’t have the resources to really compete at the top level, so Hecky is playing a very weak hand.

But I’m not sure we should be as bad as we have been. We are going nowhere until we sort the defence. A decent Championship team should be at least defensively organized against stronger opposition. We are all over the place, all the time. I think the players we have are capable of better.

I think Hecky gets more time to sort it out. He’s bedding in a lot of new players and a new style of play. But it’s fair to question him and we need to see improvement.

 

[loveWalrusDaveTheBlade]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

I would build strongly on your positive of Hecky’s ability to coach and develop talent as being one of the key reasons that he should stay. He took Ndaiye from a place where he was struggling to get a first team game to being a player who was instrumental in our promotion to the Premier League. His industry reputation as a coach was, in my opinion, critical to our success in securing loan deals for key talents from other clubs, such as Doyle and McAtee, whose services we could not otherwise afford, and whose loan services we successfully acquired in the face of stiff competition. He gives us a legacy of potentially exciting new talent in our pipeline, and is better placed than anybody to judge when and how to integrate them into the first team squad. It is clear that we cannot afford to buy ready made talent for elite football, and so we need a manager who has player development running through his veins.
For as long as we have our current owner , and current club strategy, Hecky is the obvious preferred choice as Manager. Should the ownership change, and our financial circumstances and aspirations change with it, then different choices should be considered according to these new circumstances,but this is not the time in my opinion.
I agree with pretty much everything that you say in your post about the difficulty of having sensible and balanced conversations on social media. I’ve personally pretty much given up on this aspiration.

 

[SW12 to S12 to S18]

Something has to change fairly quickly, I thought once again that the performance today was lacking in fire or leadership. We’re too slow, too lightweight and lacking in any ideas and confidence and West Ham won that without really getting out of second gear.
We just seem to be continuing with the same lack of passion or fight at the moment and I can’t see where this is going to change. A change at the top might alter things or again, remain the same, we can’t get much worse, so it’s a gamble whatever. I’m not in favour of Wilder returning and not normally in favour of sacking a manager but maybe it is time for a change. Who knows?

 

[Yewsman]

Hecky has been dealt a difficult hand. He lost Berge and IllimAn plus McAte and Doyle from last season though McAtee has come back. We had an aging squad and needed to replace some of the older players. Again we are plagued by injuries. We obviously needed to recruit to stand any chance of surviving in the EPL but this was all done at the last minute of the window. This meant new players had no time to be inducted in and to be moulded into the squad and the way we want to play. We had to play Palace with a completely makeshift team which included 2 teenage strikers who had never played in the EPL before. I don’t believe that Hecky (or any of us) know what our best team is as we start to introduce players like Trusty and Silmane.
I don’t know how much input Hecky had into the recruitment. It seems clear that although we have gone into the foreign market we don’t seem to have been as successful as other clubs in recruiting players who can become EPL regulars. It has always been said that we have recruited players who lower the age of squad and who would be good enough to get us promoted should we get relegated.
Hecky did a great job getting us promoted last season. There were plenty of other clubs who had large wage bills and parachute payments who failed to get promoted. He hasn’t become a bad manager over night and simply saying we need to get rid of him begs the question of who do you replace him with. We don’t want CW back. His time has gone. We need to stick with Hecky.

 

[raimond]

Agree....when ever there's even the slightest emotive subject....it's proves almost impossible to discuss on a forum.

Aye it's daft- it's shown on here sometimes, in every day life more often and on social media constantly.

Like you said, probably from social media mainly. Bloody polls where you're in one black and white camp or another, and mass pile ons if you dare to try and show a different perspective. Defensiveness everywhere, and people being ultra-sensitive yet attacking others. Odd.

But aye, it seems to cheapen everything and mean that folk don't listen to each other, or won't, or can't. You're a happy clapper if you're positive, if you slate everyone and everything it's free speech etc....all very dull.

Anyway, maybe us being utterly shite will remind us we're all in the same boat, UTB

 

[Tony_Kaufman]

You see it all over any form of social media unfortunately. If someone likes a song they can't just say "I really like this song" instead they have to lace with over the top superlatives or say "This is the best song ever written."

Ask some people what their favourite movie is or what they think the best movie is and it'll be the one they just saw in the cinema. Ask them again one year later and that movie probably won't even be in their top ten!

There are times this season when I've almost fallen foul and wanted to call Egan the worst defender I've seen in a Blades shirt. Then I remember Jay McEvely and Nyron Nosworthy and think, Egan is poor but he's not at their standard yet and he's generally been solid but unspectacular in the Championship, though not always entirely reliable.

 

[Dave9777]

Sadly I don’t think any manager will now keep us up. I think stay with Hecky for most of the season and look at a sacking late on if we’re still rock bottom of the table.

Uncomfortable with wilder due to the way he left however a non depressed wilder could win fans back round, me included.

He went weird on the run up to the back door exit, wouldn’t want that again however I did like how he at least tried to give us a system / identity which did work for a good while and he is one of us, that alone could maybe entitle a second chance ?

 

[jono_t2000]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

I think Jimmy is treading a dangerous line tbh.

He's now trying to use his "influence" to sway people's minds and trying to pressure the club to make the decisions he wants to happen at the club.

Hopefully the club are sensible enough to not pay attention to an influencer and ignore the noise.

 

[BigBed]

I appear to have stumbled upon the massive posts thread, perfect for a 5hrs coach journey back from darn sarf.
In my eyes the division between people nowadays, stems from everybody being told to be inclusive of everyone constantly.

 

[Bladezz]

Personally my feeling is it shouldn’t be about Hecky or Wilder.

Hecky is struggling like mad and my issue is with him. I believe he is way too Inexperienced in this league.

Over the last 2 years he hasn’t amended anything of the Wilder style. Mainly same players, exact same system nothing innovative.

His signings this season are somewhat awful. I saw someone say If Souza was called Smith we would be criticising him beyond belief. Signing ball playing midfielders with 30% possession is suicidal. Signing a small striker like Archer and Traore when we need pace and power agains is wrong.

Losing 8-0 at home for me was the end.

Then the next question after is who is out there? I wouldn’t personally just go for wilder I would see who’s out there see who’s interested in an interview and then proceed from that point.

 

[Bell4]

There's been plenty of discussion regards whether we should keep Hecky, go for an easy replacement like Wilder or risk an outsider.

However I'm finding more and more how, where there's differences of opinion, it becomes almost impossible to rationally have a discussion.
Jimmy (form the Bladesramble YouTube channel) mentioned this week, that his opinion is to replace Hecky with Wilder if we lose to West Ham
and instead of receiving counter arguments, he's just received out and out abuse over social media for preferring Wilder.

Noticed in recent years, more and more, if you disagree with someone, instead of having a rational/ logical debate the fashion is to at best be sarcastic or at worse abuse or even threaten the poster who dares have a different opinion. Not sure whether the blame lies with social media, the newspapers, even programmes and news on TV who have encouraged division, exaggeration and controversial (wind up) opinions. An outrageous/ disrespectful reaction does seem to attract more views, more clicks, more likes = more money, however society as a whole seem to be influenced by it so everything becomes divisive.

There's this necessity to put a label on someone, put them in a box.
So it's a straight choice of, are you in the Pro Chris Wilder gang, the Pro Hecky gang or you a bit odd and prefer someone else?

Then once you choose your gang, it weirdly it becomes part of your identity, it's becomes an emotional bond and you're not allowed to change or be disloyal. It's the same with Brexit/ EU, vax/ anti vax, pro Donald Trump/ anti Trump, pro Ched/ anti Ched, pro global warming/ global warning conspiracy.....instead of appreciating nuance and considering or even agreeing points on both sides of the argument, people have this necessity to put you in a box, then you are either on their side and against them, so deserve abuse.

On social media I've seen comments like
"The media are trying to bully SUFC and Hecky into appointing Wilder, well in my view Hecky can lose every remaining match, we still want him here all season" and
"That Wilder bloke is a nasty traitor, he left us for a big pay off, he's an old has been, so don't want him anywhere near our club"
"We just lost 8-0, so obviously Hecky is rubbish....Hecky out"
"If we lose to West Ham today then that's it....Hecky should be gone"

Is anyone able to look at the bigger picture, consider the pro's and con's of Hecky and Wilder and accept there are nuances regards a decision for the owner.
Also in order to make the correct decision, it's important to de-personalise it. Shouldn't make any difference if you personally like/ dislike Hecky or like Wilder.
I'm more bothered about Sheff United than either Hecky or Wilder, who are both just servants to the club, it's nothing personal.

Always say one-off results can't be controlled, so when we win I can sometimes be concerned and be negative where as if we play really well but lose...I'm generally optimistic however tactics/ substitutions/ performances and effort given by the players can be controlled by the manager and this is what we should judge.
Also performances, tactics, structure are generally an indicator of future results. So let's have a look at some facts relating to performance.

H Palace Our possession 32% shots 8 with 1 on target, corners 5 Palace possession 68% shots 24 with 8 on target, corners 5
A Forest Our possession 50% shots 7 with 3 on target, corners 7 Forest possession 50% shots 16 with 4 on target, corners 6
H Man C Our possession 20% shots 6 with 2 on target, corners 1 Man City possession 80%, shots 30 with 9 on target, corners 12
H Everton Our possession 45% shots 13 with 8 on target, corners 4 Everton possession 55%, shots 16 with 6 on target, corners 6
A Spurs Our possession 30% shots 7 with 5 on target, corners 2 Spurs possession 70%, shots 28 and 10 on target, corners 15
H Newcastle possession 42% shots 9 with 1 on target, corners 2 Newcastle possession 58%, shots 22 with 15 on target, corners 6
A West Ham possession 47%, shots 16 with 2 on target, corners 4 West Ham possession 53%, shots 20 and 9 on target, corners

If you take an average of those matches
Sheff United possession averages 38%, shots 9 with 3 shots on target
Opposition possession averages 72%, shots 22 with 9 shots on target

Looking at those facts, can understand someone might say we were unlucky to lose in the last minutes against Man City and Spurs but the stats show we were totally outclassed. Our 3 shots on target per game is really poor. Also the opposition having 9 shots on target every single game is shockingly bad, could be argued we've been lucky to only lose by 1 goal in most matches.

Pro's regards Hecky
1: Achieved promotion as recently as last season, so deserve some loyalty and respect.
Although this isn't the fantastic/ unbelievable achievement some suggest because he had one of the best, most expensively assembled squads in the league so it was a good achievement.
2: Has a a calm, mild mannered personality, visually seems to be able to handle pressure, no controversy with the media , tends not to be salty and complain all the time like a Warnock.
3: Generally popular and well liked amongst the fanbase, this is important because fan harmony/ disharmony can affect results and effect the clubs future.
4: Has a great record in the Academy developing youngsters
5: He has a popular. likeable backroom staff on Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, you would imagine these SUFC people would have to leave if we replaced Hecky.

Negative regards Hecky
1: The style of play last season was often unconvincing, it was more pragmatic, keeping things tight, relying on a piece of magic from N'Diaye or McAtee, then sitting back last 20 minutes hanging on, which to be fair we did fairly comfortably. The defence was always under pressure and overworked but our goalie usually had little to do.,
2: Inconsistency in style of play and tactics, in many matches we did have 15 minute spells of playing some really good quick passing possession football, where we looked a top two team but then in the same game we had 20 minute spells, usually towards the end where, alarmingly, we couldn't bring 3 passes together and we were just booting out the ball into row Z.
3: Is he too nice? Never seems to criticise the team or any player in public. This could be a positive but looks like the players aren't giving him 100%.
Maybe he needs to come down like a ton of bricks to motivate certain individuals.
4: His media profile is very low, which in the PL world is important. Noticed that when we had Wilder we received loads of attention on Talksport radio.
Where as this season we've hardly received any attention, it's as though we don't exist. This is because the media aren't interested in Hecky as he gives them nothing.
Where as Wilder was always worth a rant and an interesting or controversial quote.

My view is that we should TRY to remain loyal to Hecky because he deserves it.
Even though we were promoted last season did anyone notice how opposition fans consistently said we are an average team and only won because of N'Diaye, taking off my red and white glasses, I could see their point, however last season we had to be promoted at any cost, so Hecky wisely took the pragmatic approach of finding a formula to grind out unconvincing wins, due to our fragile finances the performances were irrelevant.

I've heard people say....."we don't want to be in the Premier League....we don't belong here and would prefer the Championship it's real football there"
or "we've no chance of staying in the PL...so should keep Hecky to develop us in the Championship"

Not sure I go with "let's just give up" mentality. Think the players are good enough to give these PL teams a much better more competitive game.
Also no owner is going to just accept relegation, it's obvious they are going to hold a manager as accountable and will swap at some stage.

Regards Wilder
It's a controversial one because the positives are very strong, stronger than Hecky's positives, he's proven he can perform miracles in making below average players challenge for a Champions League position, so I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we starting moving up the table with Wilder.
However Wilders negatives are also very strong, again stronger than Heck's negatives, so if we continue to lose it could turn toxic and this wouldn't be a massive surprise either.

So I do have reservations about Wilder but logically speaking if things don't perk up soon, then we have little to lose in taking a risk with Wilder.
Alternatively we could bring in someone else and tell them they are here for the long term to bring us back up from the Championship, like a Graham Potter type.
If we are relegated with Potter, the fans will still be in side to mount a promotion push where if we're relegated with Wilder, think half the fanbase will want him sacked.

Hecky at the club is like the fire is close to going out with a few burning embers,
If Wider joins, it makes big news in the media as it's an interesting story for the neutral, it would be like throwing a barrel of paraffin on the fire.
Really confident he would provide a massive shot in the arm of the club and the players but it could be short lived and things gradually return back to the burning mbers.

Who knows?

Great post

What I’ve noticed more and more is that when someone proposes their view , some people resort with sarcastic condescending insults .

This is becoming more prevalent , it’s the air of superiority that some people try to protect that is frustrating and tbh comes across as .. look at me … type behaviour

They know and we know who they are

 

[Jacobsenthecrab]

Sadly I don’t think any manager will now keep us up. I think stay with Hecky for most of the season and look at a sacking late on if we’re still rock bottom of the table.

Uncomfortable with wilder due to the way he left however a non depressed wilder could win fans back round, me included.

He went weird on the run up to the back door exit, wouldn’t want that again however I did like how he at least tried to give us a system / identity which did work for a good while and he is one of us, that alone could maybe entitle a second chance ?

Respect your view but I think Wilders system got found out and he was unable to change.

Also the way he left and his behaviour leading upto his self imposed departure is too much for me to forgive.

I know people at the club and he did everything he said he would never do, risked the clubs future to boost his bank balance and caused all sorts of trouble.

I also think if you look at it rationally his record since has been really poor and there is nothing to suggest he has learned from his mistakes so it’s a big no from me.

 

[YES Blade]

Respect your view but I think Wilders system got found out and he was unable to change.

Also the way he left and his behaviour leading upto his self imposed departure is too much for me to forgive.

I know people at the club and he did everything he said he would never do, risked the clubs future to boost his bank balance and caused all sorts of trouble.

I also think if you look at it rationally his record since has been really poor and there is nothing to suggest he has learned from his mistakes so it’s a big no from me.

Never go back! It’s as simple as that for me. I’ve done it myself, went back to a former employer and I left again within 6 months!

I guarantee Wilder wouldn’t last a year.

 

[Shawy24]

Neither. Without the need for analysis and rational arguments.

Hecky is boring and couldn’t inspire a jelly to wobble.

Wilder is an arrogant snake.

No, I don’t have any idea who could do the job.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Respect your view but I think Wilders system got found out and he was unable to change.

Also the way he left and his behaviour leading upto his self imposed departure is too much for me to forgive.

I know people at the club and he did everything he said he would never do, risked the clubs future to boost his bank balance and caused all sorts of trouble.

I also think if you look at it rationally his record since has been really poor and there is nothing to suggest he has learned from his mistakes so it’s a big no from me.

Decent/ valid comments.
1: Regards this famous Wilder system, think it's a bit of a red herring.
It's not just only "the system" but the players playing it and the time they had to practice it in a safe lower standard environment. Really believe that not many centre backs in the world are able to play that role to a high standard. Wilder struck lucky to have Basham and especially O'Connell who were naturally brilliant at it.

They were able to practice it without pressure in league 1, then had plenty of time (with hardly any injuries to anyone) to build up the Basham/ Baldock partnership and O'Connell/ Stevens partnership.

Opposition PL managers knew our tactics, it was no surprise to them but they still couldn't do anything to stop it.
If O'Connell hadn't been injured then think we'd have comfortably stayed up again.

My observation though is that with Wilder the players were clearly well drilled and seemed to know where to pass the ball without even looking, this shows practice on the training ground was used in matches. Also every players seemed comfortable on the ball and able to play short pass and move football, at times we overpassed.

2: Think there's almost 2 different sports going on when you compare PL football to Championship football.
In the PL, possession is so important, in order to take pressure off the defence we should be practicing how to keep aimless/ pointless possession.
We should learn to waste time by just keeping the ball, instead we boot it up front for Archer to chase, their defenders get there first so we immediately give up possession. Always thought some managers might be brilliant in the Championship but hopeless in the PL and vice versa.

Makes me wonder if Hecky is like Warnock, where his principles/ football style can never at PL level because he doesn't treasure keeping possession.

3: Agree Wilder left in bad circumstances but he's Captain Angry, passionate/ salty/ egoist and doesn't accept fools or non triers.
The negatives about throwing toys out of the pram and needing a dummy are also part of this strengths, he wears his heart on his sleeve.
Regards the finances, there's a decent chance we can get him on the cheap with just a temporary non commitment contract.

4: I know a Boro fan and they were really impressed with Wilder in the early days. The football was much better, very attacking and entertaining, creating loads of chances but being unlucky missing clear chances. Even though they started poorly their fans were optimistic because the performances were so good.
Then they noticed a pattern forming of bad luck this, bad luck that. He said Wilders Boro were unlucky but if a team keeps being unlucky every week then it can't be bad luck. Then as per usual because Wilder wears his heart on this sleeve, he started showing the pressure on his face and being salty during pre/post match interviews.
The fans became fed up with excuses and wanted a change. Regards Wilder at Watford think that was a low risk high reward short term punt.
Watford were a basket case, with players that Wilder doesn't like, the highly talented low workmate types, so it was no surprise he struggled really.

There's also a school of thought that managers learn more from adversity during their bad times than they learn from their good times.
So wouldn't surprise me if Wilder is now a better man manager than he was compared to his first spell.

 

[vas borbokis]

I can certainly do without all the polarised arguments. The ignore button is about worn out recently.
My view is we are in transition and trying to bed in lots of new players as the old guard bow out. It's hard enough to do that alone without complicating it by having managerial changes.

Hecky has built a lot of trust with the majority of the senior players, having brought them on and into the team that won promotion.

Promotion wasn't given to us by the way. It was hard earned.

The squad (or many in it) is only just getting back to full fitness and strength so I reckon we should be looking at the next 10 games, not the last 6 for significant improvement before even thinking about looking at changing anything let alone the manager.

 

[CPB]

If we get rid of hecky we aren't going to be getting a Graham Potter.

He will be waiting for a better opportunity, he might even go back abroad.

Hassenhutl is a possible but is he a fit for us?

If they do change you need someone to hit the ground running.

 

[Sheffsteel]

I think Jimmy is treading a dangerous line tbh.

He's now trying to use his "influence" to sway people's minds and trying to pressure the club to make the decisions he wants to happen at the club.

Hopefully the club are sensible enough to not pay attention to an influencer and ignore the noise.

I know what you mean about showing responsibility when you have the power to influence
but to be fair it's a fan channel with it's raison d'être being about giving an opinion and inviting counter opinions. Think it's a really good channel, we're lucky in that we have a few excellent YouTube channels and they all use a slightly different format, so are not in direct competition with each other.

It's quite normal and common to have different opinions, Mark Goldbridge has his YouTube channel regards Man Utd, Robbie Lyle is the same with his Arsenal TV Youtube channel. They are similar to a Pearce Morgan type, giving an opinion, might be controversial and/or unpopular (think PM is deliberately on the wind up some of the time) however the skill is they then back up their opinion with a list of factors, which arguably make sense.

Jimmy has mentioned before that he's been shocked regards how unpleasant it can be...just to give an opinion that some people don't agree with.
Really think they need to start teaching critical thinking and understanding nuance, at school in general studies or something.
Things are rarely ever black or white, good or evil, great or crap etc. Hamer was a world beater a few weeks ago, apparently now he's crap ha ha.

Pretty sure the club won't take any notice of this forum or Jimmys channel.
Some might then deduct that they take no notice because the Prince doesn't care about what the fans think. When the Prince DOES prefer to keep the fanbase happy, the reason this forum means little to the owners is because we have 50K different fans who attend matches each season.

In the latest Hecky out/ Wilder in poll, there's currently 859 people who voted, that's just 1.7% of our match going fanbase going their opinion.
Also to be honest when you have millions invested or at stake then you're fully focussed to protect your investment.

Regards Wilder there's no way we should be giving him a "normal" contract, it should be temporary to the end of the season and weighted to benefit the club, so he might say no. We should also consider other options, if these prove expensive or poor value...then we might have no choice but to stick with Hecky.
He's a fairly popular/likable character, so at least it's not turning toxic yet.

 

[Numpty's Dusty Ruts.]

I know what you mean about showing responsibility when you have the power to influence
but to be fair it's a fan channel with it's raison d'être being about giving an opinion and inviting counter opinions. Think it's a really good channel, we're lucky in that we have a few excellent YouTube channels and they all use a slightly different format, so are not in direct competition with each other.

It's quite normal and common to have different opinions, Mark Goldbridge has his YouTube channel regards Man Utd, Robbie Lyle is the same with his Arsenal TV Youtube channel. They are similar to a Pearce Morgan type, giving an opinion, might be controversial and/or unpopular (think PM is deliberately on the wind up some of the time) however the skill is they then back up their opinion with a list of factors, which arguably make sense.

Jimmy has mentioned before that he's been shocked regards how unpleasant it can be...just to give an opinion that some people don't agree with.
Really think they need to start teaching critical thinking and understanding nuance, at school in general studies or something.
Things are rarely ever black or white, good or evil, great or crap etc. Hamer was a world beater a few weeks ago, apparently now he's crap ha ha.

Pretty sure the club won't take any notice of this forum or Jimmys channel.
Some might then deduct that they take no notice because the Prince doesn't care about what the fans think. When the Prince DOES prefer to keep the fanbase happy, the reason this forum means little to the owners is because we have 50K different fans who attend matches each season.

In the latest Hecky out/ Wilder in poll, there's currently 859 people who voted, that's just 1.7% of our match going fanbase going their opinion.
Also to be honest when you have millions invested or at stake then you're fully focussed to protect your investment.

Regards Wilder there's no way we should be giving him a "normal" contract, it should be temporary to the end of the season and weighted to benefit the club, so he might say no. We should also consider other options, if these prove expensive or poor value...then we might have no choice but to stick with Hecky.
He's a fairly popular/likable character, so at least it's not turning toxic yet.

Sheffsteel, thanks for your thoughtful comments, and thanks to others for contributing in a thoughtful way. I honestly don't know where we go from here.
I like Hecky, he's a good and decent person in a game (and sadly a society) where there aren't enough people like that. For that reason I think he deserves more time. I don't think anyone else could get a better tune out of the players.
As for Wilder, we had the most awesome times with him, but also some crap ones. I don't think he could replicate what he did before, and I'm not sure how he'd handle relegation, which is the most likely scenario whoever is in charge.
So at the moment, my view is that Hecky stays.

 

[Champagneblade]

I think Blades Ramble is in a difficult position on this debate.

Jimmy has committed to putting content out there, which once you start, becomes an obligation.

The problem with media is that it is quite unforgiving and unforgetting.

I don’t think the Sander approach was that well received. I think most would have accepted that even if Sander did push for a move this time, there was probably us pushing as well because he seemed unkeen to extend his deal. Plus of course he’s been hawked around every window but wasn’t apparently any trouble. Sander has always had fans and whilst it’s always about opinions, I can well imagine painting a fan favourite in such a light will not go down well universally. I believe Jimmy himself was honest enough to hold his hand up that he got the approach wrong.

I like listening to him and I find the topics interesting. I do sense a slight undercurrent that there has been a shift in his view of Hecky. I can’t help but feel this is slightly tainted either by Jimmy knowing Wilder or having been a big fan before; weren’t we all to be honest? Prior to this in the summer it felt Jimmy was behind Hecky and appreciative that his budget was a limited one and that in all likelihood we would go down.

Something has recently shifted. I’d be interested to know what triggered it.

Either way, I like hard working folks to do well so I hope he can balance getting folk talking and growing his channel with perhaps not going out there on a limb so much that it invites unsavoury stuff. He rightly brings up mental health and we all have to look after each other in these difficult times.

It’s easy to be overemotional and to have knee jerk reactions. Fortunately the Prince isn’t like this.

We seem to have a long term plan. It involves developing our own players and being self-sustainable. That is not an easy plan to adhere to and most managers are a little fly by night in terms of their commitments to such things.

The ironic thing is that Wilder could have been one of those long term appointments if he’d hung in there. I.e. a long term appointment. Personally I always prefer continuity.

But let’s not forget this situation is comparable to before. He quit not once in the spur of the moment but three times. Has he really got the temperament for what is needed? A lot feel he lost the dressing room when he went in on the players against Leicester. He also had a pop at the players at Watford. It would make a nice story and I’m sure initially a number would be charmed. Maybe he would return more humble? But it feels a little that it is more for him than for us.

Hecky helped put the pieces back together. He’s given more young players a shot than anyone, something Chris didn’t really do. He seems more aligned to accept and work within the constraints the Prince is working under.

I just hope if any decision gets made that it’s for the best and well thought through. I don’t want change for changes sake because that is simply not a plan.

UTB

 

[mancunianblade]

It’s just boring isn’t it. We are a premier league team and seems many of our fans and ultimately club are only interested in candidates who live within 15 miles of the Lane.

Club needs to move on in so many aspects.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

One negative for Wilder that no one seems to consider is that, Wes, Baldock, Basham, Egan, Robinson, Lowe, Norwood, Fleck, McBurnie, Brewster were all in the building when he totally lost the plot. Pretty sure that group won't forget what was said/done 2 short years ago... Think of your own workplace when your old boss walked out having torched the entire building then wants to come back... How would you feel?

 

[Sheffsteel]

I think Blades Ramble is in a difficult position on this debate.

Jimmy has committed to putting content out there, which once you start, becomes an obligation.

The problem with media is that it is quite unforgiving and unforgetting.

I don’t think the Sander approach was that well received. I think most would have accepted that even if Sander did push for a move this time, there was probably us pushing as well because he seemed unkeen to extend his deal. Plus of course he’s been hawked around every window but wasn’t apparently any trouble. Sander has always had fans and whilst it’s always about opinions, I can well imagine painting a fan favourite in such a light will not go down well universally. I believe Jimmy himself was honest enough to hold his hand up that he got the approach wrong.

I like listening to him and I find the topics interesting. I do sense a slight undercurrent that there has been a shift in his view of Hecky. I can’t help but feel this is slightly tainted either by Jimmy knowing Wilder or having been a big fan before; weren’t we all to be honest? Prior to this in the summer it felt Jimmy was behind Hecky and appreciative that his budget was a limited one and that in all likelihood we would go down.

Something has recently shifted. I’d be interested to know what triggered it.

Either way, I like hard working folks to do well so I hope he can balance getting folk talking and growing his channel with perhaps not going out there on a limb so much that it invites unsavoury stuff. He rightly brings up mental health and we all have to look after each other in these difficult times.

It’s easy to be overemotional and to have knee jerk reactions. Fortunately the Prince isn’t like this.

We seem to have a long term plan. It involves developing our own players and being self-sustainable. That is not an easy plan to adhere to and most managers are a little fly by night in terms of their commitments to such things.

The ironic thing is that Wilder could have been one of those long term appointments if he’d hung in there. I.e. a long term appointment. Personally I always prefer continuity.

But let’s not forget this situation is comparable to before. He quit not once in the spur of the moment but three times. Has he really got the temperament for what is needed? A lot feel he lost the dressing room when he went in on the players against Leicester. He also had a pop at the players at Watford. It would make a nice story and I’m sure initially a number would be charmed. Maybe he would return more humble? But it feels a little that it is more for him than for us.

Hecky helped put the pieces back together. He’s given more young players a shot than anyone, something Chris didn’t really do. He seems more aligned to accept and work within the constraints the Prince is working under.

I just hope if any decision gets made that it’s for the best and well thought through. I don’t want change for changes sake because that is simply not a plan.

UTB

Excellent post, can agree with all of that. Hence why I’m not 100% on Wilder, we should acknowledge it's a risk
but I’ve had some doubts on Hecky too since last year. Of course I’ll fully support whoever is manager (whether it's Hecky, Wilder or someone else) and accept Hecky is a decent guy.Also altho I have doubts on Hecky, everyone has strengths and weakness and I accept Hecky has some strengths too. Glad I'm not making the decision.

It’s just boring isn’t it. We are a premier league team and seems many of our fans and ultimately club are only interested in candidates who live within 15 miles of the Lane.

Club needs to move on in so many aspects.

Agree with the sentiment however when ever we show ambition and go for someone for an outsider, big name with a good CV.
It's weird, the fanbase never seem to accept them and they usually struggle.

We had big Blade Neil Warnock with his pashun for the club.
McCabe wanted to make us more "big time" and link us to a world wide impressive name, his 1st choice was Kenny Dalglish, he approached ex England manager Graham Taylor to become director of football, both turned us down.

Eventually he brought in Captain Marvel Brian Robson as front man with his links and the very highly rated Brian Kidd as assistant to sort out the tactics.
We changed to a keep possession passing style, the fans didn't like it because it was too slow with hardly any goal mouth action.

We reverted to the cheap option, bringing back Blackwell, to revert back to Warnock more direct % football style and we were instantly much better.

In league 1 we showed massive ambition bringing in the best CV available, with the highly rated Nigel Atkins.
He promised good passing football, it never worked, so he was gone.

Then we choose the cheap option bringing in big Blade Chris Wilder, what a story, one of the most impressive rise up the table in recent English history.
Cheltenham Town are currently bottom on league 1, imagine if someone said, in 4 years time they'll be 5th in the PL trying to finish up in the Champions League

Chris left and we showed big ambition, paying loads of money for the best, we brought in Slavisa Jukanovic and his backroom team.
Again the football appeared good, lots of controlled passing keeping possession football, but it was so similar to Robsons early games, too slow allowing defences time to re-organse, so we didn't create much and struggled to gain results.

Slav was sacked and again we choose the cheap in-house option in Hecky.
We reverted to a more direct, give 100% style. We didn't look cultured but it was effective football and we started moving up the table.

Hecky seems to have lost his touch and its decision time.
It's almost like it's written, show ambition going for someone like Graham Potter and he'll struggle and be quickly sacked.
So for the cheap option, who has links to Sheff Utd, like a Wilder or ever a Stuart McCall and it'll be a short term success.