Second Season Syndrome

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Mad Mick said:
You tried Grammarly? There is a free version and it might help a lot. I struggle a bit with punctuation and it's put me right.
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Things like Grammarly are really good, if on goods days, which I have however on a bad day, spell checker, Grammarly don't work as they don't know the hell I am trying to say, for me, I do but the difference between speaking a sentence and writing can be as different as night and day.
 
Brian Blessed said:
Why do people say that a team or system gets sussed out in the second season? Why don't the best coaches in the world suss it out in the second half of the first season having already played against it once?

I don't think it's even a system that can be sussed out, it's based on hard work and extreme discipline and organisation it's one thing knowing exactly what to expect against United, it's another to actually be able to stop it.
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Agreed, I don’t really understand why some people think we’ll be sussed out. Do they think that opposing managers don’t do any homework on us before they play us? Is it all a surprise to them in that first match? No of course it isn’t, they will have done loads of preparation before they play us the first time, these people are pros in the best league in Europe so give them some credit.
Why should it suddenly dawn on them how to combat us after our first season, they already knew about us long before we even kicked a ball in anger in The Premier League so why do these experts think that our opponents will at last have devised a plan to stop us?
What they’re actually saying is that I’m a lazy pundit who’d barely seen Sheffield United and therefor all the coaching staff in the Premier League are as lazy as me but now they’ll have seen us twice we’ll be cannon fodder next season.
I’ll bet the views from our opponents managers etc aren’t anything like the opinions of the so called experts, they know how to play us, just the same as they did this season, but actually getting their players to be better than ours on the pitch is a different matter.
 
Brian Blessed said:
Why do people say that a team or system gets sussed out in the second season? Why don't the best coaches in the world suss it out in the second half of the first season having already played against it once?

I don't think it's even a system that can be sussed out, it's based on hard work and extreme discipline and organisation it's one thing knowing exactly what to expect against United, it's another to actually be able to stop it.
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If people say that it’s because they’ve got an agenda or they don’t follow football very closely.
Our challenges won’t be related to our system, it will be retaining players whilst bringing in some fresh faces and trying to do that without damaging the team spirit and unity of purpose that has served us so well. And doing so on a limited budget.
 
On the subject of being sussed out, the evidence is there for all other teams to see and counteract. We have a distinct style of play, and we work harder during the game than the opposition. Same as Liverpool.

If another team wants to win the title next season, they at least need to start working as hard as Liverpool. To guarantee they'll finish above us, they need to at least start working as hard as Sheffield United.

We should have a more individually talented squad next season, so you'd think we'll be narrowing the gap in ability between our team and the traditional top six. The challenge that those teams have is narrowing the gap between their work rate and ours.
 
Snake said:
I must admit a couple of months ago I was thinking that maybe we are playing at the very top of our capabilities and nicking some tight games. I strongly suspected (though never dreamt we would remain in this position for as long as we have) that we would have enough about us this season to avoid relegation. However, I did feel that next season it would be far tougher for us - when our game has been proverbially sussed out, as we are often reminded by the "experts" 🙄

After Saturday though I don't think like that anymore. We have increasingly come into our own since that nightmare fixture schedule of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham, City. We are showing that we are more than capable of holding our own (and more!) in this division over a sustained period of time. Brighton will easily survive this season - probably finishing 15 or 16th. They came to do a job on us and that is what they did - the same as they have done to Chelsea, Spurs and others this season. However, we were easily the better team through skill more than pure graft.

In my mind this bodes really well for the immediate future. With a few more signings and tactical tweaks in the summer I am positive we will be in a similar position next season. I'd love us to get into Europe but I'm not going to lose any sleep if we dont. If we just fall short there it will give us something to really aim for next season and continue our fantastic progression under CWAK - with the excellent off field leadership of the Prince and Steve Bettis.

UTB ⚔ ⚔ ⚔
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I’ve not researched it but I’m guessing this “second season syndrome” is another football myth with not much evidence to support it.

More important I think is to make a call on whether a team is in the ascendancy on and off the pitch, stagnating, or in decline.

I remember some wise words when Sam Ellis was assistant to Blackwell. He said we were a club in decline, and he was right back then. I remember thinking at the time that this was actually quite astute of him, because to make a statement like that you are not just basing it on short term results, you are looking at the bigger picture surrounding all aspects of the club’s prospects. He clearly saw problems ahead on and off the field of play and got it spot on for me.

Fast forward to now and the picture is very different. We are most definitely in the ascendancy and possibly in the best situation we’ve ever had.

It’s not about League position or even trophies. It’s about the club as a whole getting stronger and I don’t have any concerns about this “second season syndrome”, if indeed it really exists?
 
elgoog44 said:
Its something genuinely I wish I could help, but not something no matter how much I do I can, some day's, I struggle just put a sentence together and even still making it make any sort of legible sense, especially when I spell something and even spell checker comes back with no alternatives, so I have to think how to say it in a different way.

I try not to take it personally, but when it is something you try and combat every day, especially when you work on a computer every day it can get tiresome, I am sure if you look though my posts they must stick out with lots of errors, but has said not something I can help and I do try I re-read but sometimes that can help just create more confusion.

Any way no worries, just think maybe as a species we should now and again try to look at things for a different perspective.
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A great post, and don't have any problem reading and understanding what you say in any of your posts. Keep on posting and don't be discouraged. I'd much rather read your stuff than some of the more knuckle dragging (but word perfect) posts from some people!🙂
 
Numpty's Dusty Ruts. said:
A great post, and don't have any problem reading and understanding what you say in any of your posts. Keep on posting and don't be discouraged. I'd much rather read your stuff than some of the more knuckle dragging (but word perfect) posts from some people!🙂
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I may be a Neanderthal but at least I can spell it.
 
elgoog44 said:
Its something genuinely I wish I could help, but not something no matter how much I do I can, some day's, I struggle just put a sentence together and even still making it make any sort of legible sense, especially when I spell something and even spell checker comes back with no alternatives, so I have to think how to say it in a different way.

I try not to take it personally, but when it is something you try and combat every day, especially when you work on a computer every day it can get tiresome, I am sure if you look though my posts they must stick out with lots of errors, but has said not something I can help and I do try I re-read but sometimes that can help just create more confusion.

Any way no worries, just think maybe as a species we should now and again try to look at things for a different perspective.
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Your posts are fine mate, don’t think too hard about it. It really doesn’t matter.
 
This came up earlier in the season and someone in here did the analysis on 2nd season syndrome.

Turns out it doesn't exist. Of course teams do get relegated in their 2nd season but no more often than any other season.

In their first year, 40% of teams go down. After that it's about 25%,and that is pretty much the same as everyone else bar the 7 clubs who've not been relegated for a very long time.
 
Brian Blessed said:
Why do people say that a team or system gets sussed out in the second season? Why don't the best coaches in the world suss it out in the second half of the first season having already played against it once?

I don't think it's even a system that can be sussed out, it's based on hard work and extreme discipline and organisation it's one thing knowing exactly what to expect against United, it's another to actually be able to stop it.
Click to expand...
Excatly. We were sussed out by the managers in this league well before we got promoted, and by those in the league below. It's one thing to understand how we play a d quite another to then deal with it.

Our results next season will largely be driven by our own performances and recruitment.
 
Brian Blessed said:
Why do people say that a team or system gets sussed out in the second season? Why don't the best coaches in the world suss it out in the second half of the first season having already played against it once?

I don't think it's even a system that can be sussed out, it's based on hard work and extreme discipline and organisation it's one thing knowing exactly what to expect against United, it's another to actually be able to stop it.
Click to expand...

The only people I've heard say we'll get sussed out are those hoping we do. We know ourselves we can adapt and tweak it to adjust to the opposition, without compromising our style too much.

To be sussed out properly would be nigh on impossible considering the options we've got.

As for the suggestion we get better in Wilders second season, I'll point out that that has only happened once.
 
We have the second best defensive record in the division. This is why we are (almost certainly!) staying up. Teams who concede so few goals tend to finish in the top half of the league. Our record is exceptional.

We have the 15th best scoring record in the division. That is not so good. Teams who score so few goals tend to struggle to stay up, though there are five teams worse.

Will our defensive record get worse next season? there are a number of reasons why it might:

  • we don't have Henderson
  • someone is sold
  • regression to the mean/more bad luck
  • players regress due to age
  • other teams sign better strikers
  • injuries

I don't think our defensive record is a fluke - we have been excellent - but it is a big ask to repeat it. If that is right, we need to be scoring more goals to cover for a drop off at the back. That for me is the big challenge for the close season.
 

Stevo said:
Keep the spine (O'Connell, Egan, fleck, Henderson, Stevens,baldock, bash, Norwood, berge, mcburnie) and we will be fine.....it even rhymes...........ha so does that.........
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That’s a big spine fella
 
I think that second season syndrome only applies to teams that just managed to avoid the drop in their first season
 
Ainsley Harriott said:
To be sussed out properly would be nigh on impossible considering the options we've got.
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'Second season syndrome' does exist to a degree, but it is not just getting 'sussed out' as this would have happened by Xmas, once we'd played everybody.
Part of the problem is a 'job done' complacency with the players who all start to believe they are established Premier League stars. This season we have defended superbly as a unit, with everyone putting their bodies on the line, as and when required.

If the squad starts to feel 'comfortable' and new players come in who weren't part of the fight, then that's when things go down hill. I have every confidence in CW/AK that won't happen next year. Having said that, it is an inevitable consequence of trying to improve in future seasons, that you must dilute the core of what got you here.
The key is evolution and retention of a strong core keeping the same squad mentality.
 
Cerberus Blade said:
I’ve not researched it but I’m guessing this “second season syndrome” is another football myth with not much evidence to support it.
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Looking at what's been provided, it's correct for 6 out of 46 teams over the past few years which I think it about 13%.
 
I think there have been a lot of examples of SSS and 25% is still a significant number. I think the teams it has happened to just didn't prepare properly. The main example I would site would be Hull (first time), since I can't stand them and had to take people to watch them when I worked there. The second half of their first season they slid down the table after Christmas and just survived. They did not do too much in the way of fixing the problems they had other than bringing in Bullard. He got injured down they went. The second time they did it on a shoe string and didn't invest too much and change it up.
We by contrast are still going well even at the business end of the season, have strengthened an already high performing squad and will strengthen again in the summer. We have an established system and management that can just make adjustments rather than come in with wholesale changes. The big clubs change direction every time a new manager comes in meaning upheaval again and again at the start of the season. So hopefully we keep on moving forward continuous improvement and bring in the players that CWAK want. This way SSS TSS FSS or any "X"SS, FFS won't happen. Chris Wilder has turned me into an optimist.
 
SelbyBlade said:
I think there have been a lot of examples of SSS and 25% is still a significant number. I think the teams it has happened to just didn't prepare properly. The main example I would site would be Hull (first time), since I can't stand them and had to take people to watch them when I worked there. The second half of their first season they slid down the table after Christmas and just survived. They did not do too much in the way of fixing the problems they had other than bringing in Bullard. He got injured down they went. The second time they did it on a shoe string and didn't invest too much and change it up.
We by contrast are still going well even at the business end of the season, have strengthened an already high performing squad and will strengthen again in the summer. We have an established system and management that can just make adjustments rather than come in with wholesale changes. The big clubs change direction every time a new manager comes in meaning upheaval again and again at the start of the season. So hopefully we keep on moving forward continuous improvement and bring in the players that CWAK want. This way SSS TSS FSS or any "X"SS, FFS won't happen. Chris Wilder has turned me into an optimist.
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Sorry, I must have missed it. Where has 25% come from?
 
SelbyBlade said:
OP
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Three teams promoted each season, so it's 6 teams relegated in their second season out of 42 therefore making it closer to 14%. Unless I'm having a moment.
For example this season there's not going to be anyone promoted in 17/18 getting relegated.
 
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Flatulent_Bob said:
Three teams promoted each season, so it's 6 teams relegated in their second season out of 42 therefore making it closer to 14%. Unless I'm having a moment.
For example this season there's not going to be anyone promoted in 17/18 getting relegated.
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I'm believing the OP's figures as I believe it is 25% of those that have not already been relegated in first season syndrome.
 
Flatulent_Bob said:
Three teams promoted each season, so it's 6 teams relegated in their second season out of 42 therefore making it closer to 14%. Unless I'm having a moment.
For example this season there's not going to be anyone promoted in 17/18 getting relegated.
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From the OP

Since 04/05 only 25% of the teams that survived their first season in the prem were relegated the following season.
 
I fully expect us to become established as a top half/pushing for Europe side over the next few years as we incrementally build a squad to do just that. We are immensely lucky that our manager is also a supporter, keep hold of him, as I think we will, and the next few years will be the best in the club’s history.
 

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