ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
…but with a whimper.
Good Friday and Easter Monday provided a 2-part Easter. Against Cardiff on Good Friday we had an OK outing – a quick reaction and a quality finish from Gus Hamer to put us ahead. Getting nervy towards the end, then the ball nicked and progressed by Kieffer Moore who managed to engineer a deflected pass for BBD to hammer in and ease our nerves. In reality, both of our goals came to the scorer via deflections, so hardly inspiring stuff. In all honesty, for a side fighting relegation, Cardiff were pathetic.
So, on to Easter Monday. Leeds disposed of Stoke 6-0 before our kick-off, and demonstrated how you should play when you know you’re better than the opposition. For our game, we turned up frightened at Burnley. In a game which we had to win to stand any chance of automatics we played like a team who expected to lose. Wilder’s one strength was putting out a team that outworked the opposition, and even that has gone now.
Good reaction from Brownhill for Burnley’s first goal. Then Cannon showed both why we bought him, and why we shouldn’t have, in this game. He has no pace and is easily knocked off the ball, so doesn’t fit in with our normal style of hard work, high press football. However, in a 2, alongside Kieffer Moore, he did look better and took his half-chance extremely well. After that, a clumsy tackle and a penalty conceded by Anel and that was about that.
Playoff lottery for us!
There's not much point of graphs that look at just this season in isolation now, but Graph1 shows that there is still something to get out of the regular season. We have 86 points from 44 games and so we can get a maximum of 92 points. Graph1 compares this season against our last 3 successful promotions from this level and shows that 92 points would be our best ever Championship result, beating Hecky’s 91 points in 22/23. Also, Wilder needs 4 points from the last 2 games to beat his personal best of 89 points in 18/19. We will, however, once again fall short of our best equivalent finish of 93 points with Reg Freeman in 1952/53.
Unfortunately, Graph1 does highlight how we really blew it over the last 5 games!
Graph 1:
Anyway, we’re in the playoffs in 3rd place and we will play 6th. So, who does the League Table suggest our next opponents will be?
League Table:
The answer is that it is wide open who our playoff semi-final opponents will be - Bristol City, Coventry, Boro, Millwall or Blackburn, take your pick. Millwall and Blackburn were the only winners today – the others lost. It would be typical if we ended up playing Blackburn 3 games in a row! Bristol City are probably the best footballing team of that group. Millwall have the greatest momentum over the last 6 matches (12 points), and over 10 matches (18 points). Coventry are worst over the last 6 and Blackburn worst over the last 10. Looking at the fixtures for our possible opponents, Chart 1, I think we’ll get Coventry in the semi, and expect Sunderland or Bristol City in the final.
Chart 1:
It's disappointing to come third, but if it finally delivers a win at Wembley it would far outweigh the promotions gained by somebody else losing while we weren’t even playing!
Leeds and Burnley were predicted to be first and second at the start of the season, and the league table shows, by looking at their results against us, that they certainly deserve that now.
For the Blades - where there’s life there’s hope:-
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Good Friday and Easter Monday provided a 2-part Easter. Against Cardiff on Good Friday we had an OK outing – a quick reaction and a quality finish from Gus Hamer to put us ahead. Getting nervy towards the end, then the ball nicked and progressed by Kieffer Moore who managed to engineer a deflected pass for BBD to hammer in and ease our nerves. In reality, both of our goals came to the scorer via deflections, so hardly inspiring stuff. In all honesty, for a side fighting relegation, Cardiff were pathetic.
So, on to Easter Monday. Leeds disposed of Stoke 6-0 before our kick-off, and demonstrated how you should play when you know you’re better than the opposition. For our game, we turned up frightened at Burnley. In a game which we had to win to stand any chance of automatics we played like a team who expected to lose. Wilder’s one strength was putting out a team that outworked the opposition, and even that has gone now.
Good reaction from Brownhill for Burnley’s first goal. Then Cannon showed both why we bought him, and why we shouldn’t have, in this game. He has no pace and is easily knocked off the ball, so doesn’t fit in with our normal style of hard work, high press football. However, in a 2, alongside Kieffer Moore, he did look better and took his half-chance extremely well. After that, a clumsy tackle and a penalty conceded by Anel and that was about that.
Playoff lottery for us!
There's not much point of graphs that look at just this season in isolation now, but Graph1 shows that there is still something to get out of the regular season. We have 86 points from 44 games and so we can get a maximum of 92 points. Graph1 compares this season against our last 3 successful promotions from this level and shows that 92 points would be our best ever Championship result, beating Hecky’s 91 points in 22/23. Also, Wilder needs 4 points from the last 2 games to beat his personal best of 89 points in 18/19. We will, however, once again fall short of our best equivalent finish of 93 points with Reg Freeman in 1952/53.
Unfortunately, Graph1 does highlight how we really blew it over the last 5 games!
Graph 1:
Anyway, we’re in the playoffs in 3rd place and we will play 6th. So, who does the League Table suggest our next opponents will be?
League Table:
The answer is that it is wide open who our playoff semi-final opponents will be - Bristol City, Coventry, Boro, Millwall or Blackburn, take your pick. Millwall and Blackburn were the only winners today – the others lost. It would be typical if we ended up playing Blackburn 3 games in a row! Bristol City are probably the best footballing team of that group. Millwall have the greatest momentum over the last 6 matches (12 points), and over 10 matches (18 points). Coventry are worst over the last 6 and Blackburn worst over the last 10. Looking at the fixtures for our possible opponents, Chart 1, I think we’ll get Coventry in the semi, and expect Sunderland or Bristol City in the final.
Chart 1:
It's disappointing to come third, but if it finally delivers a win at Wembley it would far outweigh the promotions gained by somebody else losing while we weren’t even playing!
Leeds and Burnley were predicted to be first and second at the start of the season, and the league table shows, by looking at their results against us, that they certainly deserve that now.
For the Blades - where there’s life there’s hope:-
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
