My take ...

[Bennyand the Blades]

I sometimes like to take a walk down by the river,
I think I may give it a miss tonight........

 

[puppet]

We cried out for Lunny to be dropped. Some have said Osborn deserved starts. So he drops Easter Island head and sticks Christy Brown in his place. osborn was totally out of position all evening, stupid waste of talent, nous and effort. Why oh why oh why oh why (it deserved that many) have we not tried Bogle inside from Baldock. been a no brainer for the last twenty games imho. Osborn instead of either Stevens or Fleck on the other side, ditto with a few less Why oh why's? I mean they might have created more for our useless strikers but there was always a reasonable chance that Bogle or Osborn might score in those two positions.
Another thing that has struck me all season but seemed to be even more apparent is we played very similarly to the 93/94 season in that the two blokes meant to stick the ball in the net, seemed to be miles away from the position they needed to be to score said goals.
But also, we've been woeful for virtually all of the 32 games with a few minor exceptions. Thought we played betterish than the last few games but looked slow, scared and generally unable to create a single chance all match. I can't deny shedding a little tear on full time, much as I enjoy his cheeky grin I did wonder what the actual f Fleck had to laugh about on the final whistle but maybe I'm being too harsh.
Onwards and upwards, even if upwards means rebuilding for a season and a new bloke to stamp his authority on t.

UTB

 

[Bergen Blade]

Agree with this. ultimately this formation/ system was a failure against a very poor Wolves. Plenty of decent possession, effort and quality on the ball in defence and midfield but very little end product. Baldock and stevens completely surrounded when going down the wings with no forward/ sideways out ball. No overlapping centre backs. When we did very slowly work a crossing opportunity we had no aerial threat in their box. Brewster a passenger as usual. Our ridiculous absence of goal threat exposed once again. We’ve gone down because we haven’t scored enough goals. We keep trying a system that hasn’t worked since Christmas 2019 due to other teams working out how to stop us breaking quickly down the wingsand it’s reliance on the absent JOC/ Bash. Why does anyone imagine that champion ship teams won’t do the same, probably against a weakened Blades squad? I’m not going to do the definition of insanity quote because it’s worked to death.

No, definitely 3-4-2-1, with Osborn advanced midfield, and McGoldrick and Brewster taking turns in dropping deeper alongside him. It was an attempt to address maybe our biggest problem this season, covering enough space in midfield.

Against Arsenal Heckingbottom changed from the usual 3-5-2 to a 4-3-1-2 after the break. He probably saw that Arsenal's midfield were in too much control and especially Partey had too much time on the ball in deep midfield. Acknowledging Osborn's ability to close down, he put him in advanced midfield. As a result Partey clearly had fewer touches after the break. But Arsenal counter acted this and their left back Xhaka roamed into midfield to help them retain control.

So we wanted to try something new against Wolves, another attempt to compete better in midfield. Rather than having the flat three being pushed back, trying (and failing) to push across as the opposition switched play, we had a midfield of two banks. So first Wolves had to get past Osborn and Brewster (or McGoldrick, they swapped), and if they succeeded we still had Norwood and Fleck waiting. This had us press higher and better than in a long time. Wolves couldn't get good passing moves going. Very good players like Podence and Traore were kept reasonably quiet.

I see that as a step in the right direction. We should have tried solidifying and strengthening our midfield a long time ago. Finally we managed to make a team look uncomfortable on the ball, struggle to find rhythm and space. For me player ratings should have reflected this, we worked hard, and most players put in a good defensive performance. A lot of teams have ran straight through us and created chances without getting out of third gear, but that didn't happen last night.

I agree we weren't very creative, but I think the only way to us finishing this season with some sort of dignity, is by making sure we're not pushovers defensively. If that succeeds, maybe we'll see some improvement going forward as well.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

I would like to mention this.

Ramsdale was coming out of his penalty area regularly in this game.

This is a first this season.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

We cried out for Lunny to be dropped. Some have said Osborn deserved starts. So he drops Easter Island head and sticks Christy Brown in his place. osborn was totally out of position all evening, stupid waste of talent, nous and effort. Why oh why oh why oh why (it deserved that many) have we not tried Bogle inside from Baldock. been a no brainer for the last twenty games imho. Osborn instead of either Stevens or Fleck on the other side, ditto with a few less Why oh why's? I mean they might have created more for our useless strikers but there was always a reasonable chance that Bogle or Osborn might score in those two positions.
Another thing that has struck me all season but seemed to be even more apparent is we played very similarly to the 93/94 season in that the two blokes meant to stick the ball in the net, seemed to be miles away from the position they needed to be to score said goals.
But also, we've been woeful for virtually all of the 32 games with a few minor exceptions. Thought we played betterish than the last few games but looked slow, scared and generally unable to create a single chance all match. I can't deny shedding a little tear on full time, much as I enjoy his cheeky grin I did wonder what the actual f Fleck had to laugh about on the final whistle but maybe I'm being too harsh.
Onwards and upwards, even if upwards means rebuilding for a season and a new bloke to stamp his authority on t.

UTB

Yep there is defo a resmblence.