Our unluckiest season?

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Davalon said:
Nonsense OP.

We've had a great run with injuries for a few years now.

Injuries are part of the game and obviously JOC was a huge blow but apart from Fleck early doors I doubt many others have made a blind bit of difference.
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Name a season when we had the most injuries and list them then
 



Silent Blade said:
Alright, try listing them then (injuries only).

Am I right a lot of our players left and we signed a lot (many on loan) during that season? Dont think it was really the injuries that made us use a lot of players?
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I wasn't saying it was because of the injuries (although that probably was the reason!) as to why we ended up fielding so many different players, I was just providing some substance to my claim.

As for listing all those injuries it would take me all night Silent as I would have to go through all 46 match reports. However since I've been a Blade that was the season that stands out the most to me by far as a proper injury ravaged season.
 
cc1 said:
You do understand the link between injuries and a potential change in style of play?
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Every team has injuries but most don’t become utterly shite like we have. You do understand the link between playing negative, walking pace football and being bottom with 11 points?
 
Silent Blade said:
Our wages arent as high as most of the clubs you have mentioned and the players for these clubs do not have a relegation clause in their contracts which has made it hard for us to attract better players. It wouldnt surprise me if the back up players from the clubs you have mentioned are on better wages than our 11 highest earners.
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I’d be surprised if the backup players at those clubs weren’t on double our top earners wages at least. When you consider that Henderson is a backup at Man U and he’s on somewhere north of £100k a week, Lingard etc.....
 
Silent Blade said:
Alright, try listing them then (injuries only).

Am I right a lot of our players left and we signed a lot (many on loan) during that season? Dont think it was really the injuries that made us use a lot of players?
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I'm sure I remember that it was both loanees and our own that became injured.

But I don't see how that is relevant or what difference it makes. They were still Blades players that season and loanee or not they all still count on the injury list.
 
Silent Blade said:
I stopped reading when it came to McPub. I knew that you would "deface" my OP!
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You're a bit of a mardy arse these days, aren't you Silent? Years gone by you were a reliable, knowledgeable, amicable mainstay on these here sites. Yet now you're as disagreeable and downbeat as you can get.

And as for 'defacing' OPs, I give you that pointless Rees-Mogg missive you stuck in the middle of my last 'My take ...' which clearly nobody got. What the fuck do you want out of a write up? Morris dancing and fireworks? We're fucking relegated, and we got beat, and our team is in the shithouse.

What the fuck happened to you?

We're all feeling it. We're all petty wrung out what with COVID19 and now our footy club collapsing. But fuck me, don't lose it completely, huh?

Lighten up, you miserable shit. We're all Blades, aren't we?

pommpey
 
I think that last season, rather than this season should have been the surprise.

We got promoted too quickly to have built a sustainable Premier League organisation. We surfed on a wave of Wilder passion. At some point on the beach every wave breaks.

The important thing is not to get carried away with where the wave got to, but to remember where it started and to see where it turns again.

We have a great manager and a sport-loving, sport-knowing owner. Silent is right - we have been very, very unlucky with key players this season. The fact that we got here so quickly meant that we had almost no depth and suffered from it.

We can behave like many clubs and spiral into a series of knee-jerk reactions - or we can be patient with an owner and a manager who both have the ability and character to build something very special if we show that we have the patience to let them.

Magic isn’t really Magic it’s knowledge, hard work and patience.
 
The other thing that should be pointed out is that last season was arguably our best in the modern era in terms of avoiding injury. I give Wilder and the players a lot of credit for that, because avoiding injuries is something that can happen due to preparing well, but it is also fair to say that things broke right for us on that front.

indeed, I remain of the view, though many disagree with me I know, that a lot of things broke right for us last season, certainly pre-lockdown. I know VAR went against us but this masked other things going well for us IMHO.
 
I am not a Blades fan and not trying to pretend I am or cause arguments. I do like Sheffield United and am interested in the views of fans considering the current predicament you find yourself in. Like everyone, I have my own views on where the problems lie in regard to why things are not going well this year but there is one point that I think gets bypassed a little on here and I am interested to hear some views. Also, just for the record, I think CW is a great guy and without doubt deserves the benefit of the doubt and some leeway when considering his job.

Anyway, my point is regarding the transfers in the summer. These have clearly not worked out and particularly Brewster was a disastrous buy for a club needing a striker to retain its place in the PL. Longterm he will probably work out quite well but for this season he was definitely the wrong buy. I continually see the justification for buying Brewster as Blades can't compete with the wages of other clubs. TBH, I see this as nothing but a BS excuse for a monumental fuck up. Approx 56m last summer and approx 64m the season before. Well in excess of 100m. Even with low wages, the more expensive signings are on about 30k a week, about 1.5m a year. I just don't agree Blades can't afford the wages. It was a conscious decision by senior people at the club to spend the money on transfer fees and not on wages. Callum Wilson, Ollie Watkins, Josh King, Neal Maupay are all strikers that Blades could afford to buy and pay their wages but elected not to spend the money this way. There were also lots of loan players available which were well within the Blades budget (just look at Fulham), Lookman looks very good as long as he is not on penalties and they had 7 or 8 loan players start against Everton the other day when they beat them. Baggies with Sam also look to have got some value in recently. Diagne up front, Snodgrass and a few others. All of these players would have improved Sheffield United in my opinion but Sheffield United elected not to spend their money that way, it was not that SU could not afford them. Staying in the PL is worth 130m+ a year, the Championship is worth about 15m. So about 115m difference. That would go a long way to paying increased wages.

My point is that I think someone made an extremely poor strategy decision and chose the wrong direction to take Sheffield United. Having finished 9th I would have thought it was the perfect opportunity to invest in the players required to retain the PL status as opposed to buying players that will return a very hefty profit in a few years time. Some may say this is prudent, I think it was greedy. The PL is expensive to stay in and all clubs know that but the financial rewards are huge. If a club wants to stay in the PL they need to spend a good whack of the cash they get on getting players that deliver results. The dream for clubs and most fans (including me) is to be able to buy and develop young talent and sell at a profit a few years later. But in my opinion, the priority needs to be staying in the PL before making a profit like this.

As I said, I am not trying to cause a fight on here, I am not trying to wind u guys up. It is an awful situation to be in and I do have empathy for u guys and wish u the best but I would appreciate your views on this. BTW, sorry if u feel I posted this in the wrong thread.
 
Too many ball watchers shirking responsibility
Poor communication between players.
Tired predictable unambitious game plan.
Poor individual performance levels from too many players.
All emanating from the top down.
Learn the lessons and go again next season.
UTB.
 



pommpey said:
You're a bit of a mardy arse these days, aren't you Silent? Years gone by you were a reliable, knowledgeable, amicable mainstay on these here sites. Yet now you're as disagreeable and downbeat as you can get.

And as for 'defacing' OPs, I give you that pointless Rees-Mogg missive you stuck in the middle of my last 'My take ...' which clearly nobody got. What the fuck do you want out of a write up? Morris dancing and fireworks? We're fucking relegated, and we got beat, and our team is in the shithouse.

What the fuck happened to you?

We're all feeling it. We're all petty wrung out what with COVID19 and now our footy club collapsing. But fuck me, don't lose it completely, huh?

Lighten up, you miserable shit. We're all Blades, aren't we?

pommpey
Click to expand...

Yeah it's a shame, he was a poster I had a lot of respect for but now spends most of his time slagging me off (or disagreeing with everything I say) because I don't dare toe his party line :(

Everyone has ups and downs and I don't take it personally and don't hold grudges, would happily buy you both a pint when the world gets back to normal!
 
Begley said:
I am not a Blades fan and not trying to pretend I am or cause arguments. I do like Sheffield United and am interested in the views of fans considering the current predicament you find yourself in. Like everyone, I have my own views on where the problems lie in regard to why things are not going well this year but there is one point that I think gets bypassed a little on here and I am interested to hear some views. Also, just for the record, I think CW is a great guy and without doubt deserves the benefit of the doubt and some leeway when considering his job.

Anyway, my point is regarding the transfers in the summer. These have clearly not worked out and particularly Brewster was a disastrous buy for a club needing a striker to retain its place in the PL. Longterm he will probably work out quite well but for this season he was definitely the wrong buy. I continually see the justification for buying Brewster as Blades can't compete with the wages of other clubs. TBH, I see this as nothing but a BS excuse for a monumental fuck up. Approx 56m last summer and approx 64m the season before. Well in excess of 100m. Even with low wages, the more expensive signings are on about 30k a week, about 1.5m a year. I just don't agree Blades can't afford the wages. It was a conscious decision by senior people at the club to spend the money on transfer fees and not on wages. Callum Wilson, Ollie Watkins, Josh King, Neal Maupay are all strikers that Blades could afford to buy and pay their wages but elected not to spend the money this way. There were also lots of loan players available which were well within the Blades budget (just look at Fulham), Lookman looks very good as long as he is not on penalties and they had 7 or 8 loan players start against Everton the other day when they beat them. Baggies with Sam also look to have got some value in recently. Diagne up front, Snodgrass and a few others. All of these players would have improved Sheffield United in my opinion but Sheffield United elected not to spend their money that way, it was not that SU could not afford them. Staying in the PL is worth 130m+ a year, the Championship is worth about 15m. So about 115m difference. That would go a long way to paying increased wages.

My point is that I think someone made an extremely poor strategy decision and chose the wrong direction to take Sheffield United. Having finished 9th I would have thought it was the perfect opportunity to invest in the players required to retain the PL status as opposed to buying players that will return a very hefty profit in a few years time. Some may say this is prudent, I think it was greedy. The PL is expensive to stay in and all clubs know that but the financial rewards are huge. If a club wants to stay in the PL they need to spend a good whack of the cash they get on getting players that deliver results. The dream for clubs and most fans (including me) is to be able to buy and develop young talent and sell at a profit a few years later. But in my opinion, the priority needs to be staying in the PL before making a profit like this.

As I said, I am not trying to cause a fight on here, I am not trying to wind u guys up. It is an awful situation to be in and I do have empathy for u guys and wish u the best but I would appreciate your views on this. BTW, sorry if u feel I posted this in the wrong thread.
Click to expand...
Hawkeye saved your club from going into financial ruin
 
Silent Blade said:
Not worth bothering to have a discussion with you. Sheffield United is "your club" but you dont really "support" the management and the players considering the difficulties they have had this season.
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The majority of the difficulties have been self inflicted !!! How many times has a player this season been attacking and given the ball away wth a sloppy pass that led to a goal - loads and we did it again last night. There have been precious few moments of sheer magic that the opposition have worked to score against us. So many have been from stupid mistakes.

And where is the 'we're not here to make up the numbers, we are here to get a result' mentality gone from Chris Wilder? Out the bloody window and down the street that's where. It is now ' well they're tens of million pound players and we can't compete excuses this season', isn't it. With excuses like that the team is beaten before it starts, it says my players aren't good enough for this league and we shouldn't be here.

I do admire your North Korean fanatacism, you can't criticise if you are a true blade. What utter tosh. Dont see why we have to put up with utter dross and say it is ok. The club (whoever that is) have got the recruitment of Mouset, McBurnie and Brewster utterly wrong. Perhaps CWAK et al can't recognise a decent striker as we haven't seem to have recruited one in 5 years that can play well at this level.

Perhaps the best one can say is that the club like many people were over promoted and we simply can't compete at PL level right now. Maybe in time we might be able to.
 
Silent Blade said:
Hawkeye saved your club from going into financial ruin
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Not really, I would say that getting two billionaires to buy the club saved Villa from financial ruin. Hawkeye definitely helped last season, there is absolutely no denying that. However, with so many games to play Villa's survival can't be put down to one incident for one goal. In that game we were delighted to get a point and played 10 men behind the ball in the hope of hearing the final whistle. If we were 1-0 down I am sure we would have approached the remainder of the game differently. Also, in our final games, we were very aware of what points we needed to stay up. Again, we would have approached the games differently if we need more points. Neither you nor I know whether Hawkeye was the reason we stayed up or not but with VAR the incorrect calls on goals and penalties this sort of debate can be applied to most clubs at the end of the season.
 
Davalon said:
You're a decent bloke and a proper Blade but I'm a big believer in acknowledging and learning from your mistakes to progress.

Suggesting our relegation is purely down to injuries would worry me greatly if that is what Wilder thought.
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Wilder has a tendency to double down on how he does thing when it's under scrutiny, whether that be shape, formation, selection, transfer policy, coaching policy, scouting policy etc.

Fair enough he deserves the right to, with that said as you say to move forward you need to be able to adapt and I can see little evidence of that.

Hope to be proved wrong.
 
Injuries and no crowds are a factor but every team has had to deal with that. The fact is many of our players were performing at a higher level mentally and physically last season. Two points at Christmas wasn't just down to bad luck - fragility in defence, lack of creativity in midfield and lack of firepower up front, the last two problems aren't new.

They performed out of their skins last season, but form and mentality can come and go. Hopefully between now and the end of the season the lads can string some results together, next season will be tough but hopefully United will be in the mix for promotion.
 
Deano said:
Every team has injuries but most don’t become utterly shite like we have. You do understand the link between playing negative, walking pace football and being bottom with 11 points?
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Both sentences zero substance, frustrated BS.
 
SUFC Handsworth said:
I think the three biggest factors of this season, no Henderson, no O'Connell and no fans.
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For me, they are the 3 biggest factors, along with a large portion of bad luck.

But for me it's not the whole story, amongst the bad luck there has often been a palpable lack of quality. We got away with it more last season and thanks to in part the missing players, and also other players playing above and beyond, we finished 9th, something very few of us thought we would do.

This season has been a reality check
 
pommpey said:
You started that bit pretty much with your mind made up, to be honest.

The injuries are a significant factor but with every combination we've had, Wilder has decided to stick with the consistently beatable formation, playing the consistently defeatable Wilderball tactics. You think that would make much difference even if we have JOC and Berge in? You're the 'expert', eh? By how much, is my question?

We have lost a hell of a goalkeeper, one who gave us as many crucial points last season than sicknote and McPub. We were low scoring last season, be freakishly low conceding, because of the lightning-quick reflexes and athleticism of Henderson. This season we've got what looks like a novice in goal, for whom we mutedly cheer when he falls down over and pushes a shot clear of goal. In front of him we have two-and-a-half centrebacks, and yet whilst shipping goals aplenty we still expect them to rampage up the wing into the same shut-out tactics and recover when our dismally crap midfield surrender possession. And up front we have an array of non-scoring duds, relying now on ageing players we had playing in the same position when we challenged for promotion. Having signed fifty odd million quid of strikers who this season have yet to hit the back of the net with the proficiency their elderly statesmen have.

This isn't about luck and injuries. It's about mistakes in acquisition, mistakes in playing the same tired old system with the same tired old (and in some cases incapable) players. Evidence in kind in our last game.

pommpey
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Whether I agree or not, your posts are now uniformly negative, condescending and are clearly becoming more about how you can add flair to your vitriol. Used to love reading your posts, toilet humour was world class, but I just feel you knock our club to excess these days.

I know you'll probably respond with a critique on my/yours/someone's rectum (secretly looking forward to it) but try to lighten up, sure it will do you good.
 
Revolution said:
The other thing that should be pointed out is that last season was arguably our best in the modern era in terms of avoiding injury. I give Wilder and the players a lot of credit for that, because avoiding injuries is something that can happen due to preparing well, but it is also fair to say that things broke right for us on that front.
Click to expand...

It’s always hard to prove cause-effect relationships, but I’ve often wondered whether struggling teams tend to get more injuries because players don’t want to play.

Last year, when we were flying, I imagine that players didn’t mention little niggles because they wanted to be on the pitch and not lose their place. This year (especially between games 5 and 17), it must have been pretty miserable and it is easy to see why a player with a knock might be more inclined to flag it up. Obviously that doesn’t work for the longer-term injuries like JOC or Berge, but it can certainly apply to the in and out injuries.

I’m not saying that players are deliberately hiding. It’s more the case that, when we were doing well last year, they possibly covered up some of the minor injuries and played through.
 
Geordie Blade said:
It’s always hard to prove cause-effect relationships, but I’ve often wondered whether struggling teams tend to get more injuries because players don’t want to play.

Last year, when we were flying, I imagine that players didn’t mention little niggles because they wanted to be on the pitch and not lose their place. This year (especially between games 5 and 17), it must have been pretty miserable and it is easy to see why a player with a knock might be more inclined to flag it up. Obviously that doesn’t work for the longer-term injuries like JOC or Berge, but it can certainly apply to the in and out injuries.

I’m not saying that players are deliberately hiding. It’s more the case that, when we were doing well last year, they possibly covered up some of the minor injuries and played through.
Click to expand...

Psychology plays a part I feel.

Doesn't matter whether you stack shelves, or are a professional footballer, the basic principle is the same. If you are having a good part of your life, everything goes well, you feel like you are flying, nothing can go wrong. Last season we had that momentum, at least until lockdown.

Bur when things aren't going so well, it feels like everything you touch or do turns to shite. The wages you earn doesn't mitigate that.
 



For me we’ve got more or less the same squad as last season which performed pretty well. The two glaring differences are that last year we had no injuries and this year we’ve had a Hallamshire ward full of em. This and the the lack of crowd makes a huge difference to us. Our very average players (both this season and last.) cannnot fail to be influenced by us Blades. We’ve formed a great bond with Wilders players since the league one days. But now when Stevens, Lundstram, Baldock et al turn back for the umpteenth time there are no blades baying at them with cries of ‘Gerrit in t fucking box.’ It becomes easier for the players to pass on the responsibility which in turn produces the slow turgid negative football about which this thread has spoken. People say the crowd issue is the same for all teams but I’d say that our poorer players use the gee up they get from the crowd far more than other clubs who have patently better players and don’t need it.
 
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