We're 9th in the Championship

[Gimli]

I can see why some are frustrated - it's a game that on the balance of play we should have won. The frustration is probably intensified by the two other factors of 1) we were winning these type of games at the beginning of the season which raises expectation and 2) it's at the stage of the season where each failure to win makes the prospect of the play offs more unlikely and therefore makes the rest of the season more likely to not mean owt.

i think it's fairly clear now that we are going to finish in the 'not quite good enough for the play-offs' bracket which would be about fair and also a good achievement.

 

[Sean Thornton]

and have just comfortably drawn away to a team 3 places below us.

wtf is wrong with some of you? Do you really expect pound shop players to just waltz into a team at the highest level they've every played and become world-beaters overnight?

They played well, we just don't have enough. There's not some magic wand Chris can just wave and suddenly we're a team of top Championship players.

Calm down ffs.

What we all need to remember is that this squad isn't good enough and neither are the January signings. BUT, we should be beating teams. The two go hand in hand.

It's the happy slasher paradox.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Yesterday was 2 hardworking teams playing on a very poor pitch which was difficult to play passing football on. If Lunny had pulled the trigger when through, Brooksy had shot when through, or Billy had taken Willo’s rebound better everybody would have been talking very differently. We are a very good side whose confidence is just a bit low at present.

Keep Calm The Magic is Still Growing

Leon would have won us the game.....

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

Any club which gets promoted and comfortably finishes top half in their first season up can feel mighty proud.
Imagine WHEN we get promoted to premiership, I would take top half right now.
Yesterday we outplayed Ipswich and dominated for the whole 90mins. I just don’t get how anyone can’t be pleased with that away performance.

Ask Mick who's the best team in Sheffield?

 

[Muttley]

If we had started the season on current form and then climbed to 9th.......nearly all of us would be happy as Larry.

 

[HighfieldBlade]

No doubt Mick McCarthy would've been telling his players 'beat this lot and we're in touching distance of the playoffs'. So it was always going to be a tight game.

 

[Roygbiv]

As a matter of interest, if at season's start, without disclosing the final league positions, someone would have told you that Millwall, without any serious money spent would finish above us this season. Would you have thought that was acceptable and showed progress by the club? I appreciate that this hasn't happened, but might looking at current form & run in. I'm just curious.

They are ending like we started. I expect both of us to miss out and finish in the top half which would be an excellent achievement for both clubs. I will be disappointed to finish below them but at the moment them and Fulham are the best teams in the league and you have to take your hat off to them. They have made huge progress but so have we. Not many would have had us both down for a top 12 finish this season.

 

[Punk Blade]

There were plenty on here (no idea if it includes you) after matches like Fulham and Bristol City querying the gung-ho, go all out for a win approach. We are certainly playing more cautiously now, but is this largely because other teams had worked out how to deal with our early style? In this league, you need more than Plan A, and that will take time.

Personally I thought our early season win-two-lose-one form was fair reward for our attitude of attacking everyone and going out to win every game.

Against Fulham we were defensively naive against some of the best attackers and arguably the best footballing team in the division, and showed great spirit to fight back to a single goal margin of defeat. That game is the most entertained I have been in years. Bristol City was a smash and grab (or a ‘red card and grab’, if you will).

I don’t think either result should define our season, but they seem to have made the management and players far too cautious and at times nervous, much to our detriment. If we’d just dusted ourselves off and carried on like we did after defeats in the first third of the season I think we’d have scored more goals and won more games than we have.

I agree with your final point about plan A, but it looks to me as though we have abandoned our plan A while it was still working without having plans B or C in place, which manifests as plan A-lite on the pitch. We’re safe in the division and have nothing to lose now. I would be going handbrake off and go back to how we started the season. Attack everyone, if we find some form we’ll be in good shape should we sneak 6th, if we fall short or get caught out defensively too often then at least we had a go.

 

[Kozzy_is_my_Dad]

I hear where you're coming from robbiez666 - when we were lingering in that league below I said at the time, I'd give owt for being around 8th in the Championship. The difficulty now being that we've had a taste of sumat more, folk always want more. There are factors that have affected us along the way; the loss of Coutts, limping to the JTW and being desperate for reinforcements to name but a couple. That said, and whilst we need to take stock of the good points you raise, I do think folk feel a few opportunities have been unfortunately missed to be a little higher up the table; Hull away, yesterday, Fulham at home, Villa at home, Millwall away, Bristol.

 

[Roygbiv]

I think it's understandable that the approach of both managers and players has changed. Early on we were usually the best side in every game so the confidence was really high. After that awful run and the heavy defeats to Wolves and Fulham the confidence to to everybody (including the fans) has taken a hit. We aren't as gung ho as we don't have the same faith in our abilities as we did around October time. This happens to almost every club in the world. A few bad results and you start taking that extra touch and thinking too much about what you are doing. The care free nature of our early season play was a product of the results we were picking up. We are now aware there are better sides than us in this league.

I really don't think it's anything to do with tactics or style. I think we have all just lost confidence and so are playing with a more safety first attitude. Everybody knows that confidence is a huge part of football and we have lost a fair bit of ours. The clubs with the more experienced and technically gifted players at this level recover quicker and they are the ones that succeed.

 

[1066blade]

I think yesterday just crystallised the horrible fact that the season, for all intents and purposes, is over.
Won't be going up, or down, nowt to play for or look forward to.
Some took it out on the result on the day, that's all.
Robiez666's post of slagging everyone off for over reacting was probably the biggest over reaction of all ironically.

 

[blade too long]

https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-tables/competition:championship/form/matches:6/type:home-and-away

current form shows us half way , but on inspection 4 of 6 were away , including wolves and fulham
next 6 will be the opposite 4 home 2 away

10 games left 6 home 4 away win 6 draw 1 lose 3 we can be on 75 points , might be enough
only lose 2 can finish on 78 be about certain to be in top 6

we still have 30 points to play for a max of 86, we give up if we lose the next 3 home games
failing that we are still very much in it

trouble is these hypocrits will be here saying how good we are if we go up
grow some bollocks and get behind the team

like other clubs supporters do
doubt if any of those round us have given up

 

[Sean Thornton]

I think yesterday just crystallised the horrible fact that the season, for all intents and purposes, is over.
Won't be going up, or down, nowt to play for or look forward to.
Some took it out on the result on the day, that's all.
Robiez666's post of slagging everyone off for over reacting was probably the biggest over reaction of all ironically.

Nowt to play for?

Chris, forget it mate, its over.

 

[Guesty]

Dont speak for other people.

So when we went top against Leeds, say, do you really think anyone wouldn't have been disappointed to learn that we'd be ninth in mid March? I think I made a fair assumption.

 

[jt64]

Amen to the OP, it's almost as if people are overreacting based on one result. We'd have all taken this position before kick off vs Brentford, it's only the circumstances of the red hot start that have inflated expectations.

If it is just a case of not getting the three points in a game where we had the better of play, then there's plenty of games where we haven't played brilliantly but nicked a point or even three that get conveniently forgotten in these situations

 

[Chali 2na]

So when we went top against Leeds, say, do you really think anyone wouldn't have been disappointed to learn that we'd be ninth in mid March? I think I made a fair assumption.

Yeah, me.
I understood we were playing out of our skins and getting the absoloute max out of our (at times limited) players. After Coutts' injury and the exposure of our tactics, we were always going to tail off

 

[Esablade]

Individual moments of the game were frustrating, but can you honestly say that taking a point on the road in the championship is a frustrating result?

It was frustrating viewing, as you agree.
It would have been frustrating viewing whether we’d won, lost or drawn..as was the case.

 

[Chali 2na]

It was frustrating viewing, as you agree.
It would have been frustrating viewing whether we’d won, lost or drawn..as was the case.

Was it a frustrating result though, in your opinion?

 

[Esablade]

Was it a frustrating result though, in your opinion?

IMO it was/is a frustrating result.
I’d hoped for a win down there.

 

[Chali 2na]

IMO it was/is a frustrating result.
I’d hoped for a win down there.

Fair enough.

I always hope for a win too, but i obviously have different expectations: I'm of the opionon that a point on the road is acceptable for most teams in the league, especially those who've just been promoted.

 

[Esablade]

Fair enough.

I always hope for a win too, but i obviously have different expectations: I'm of the opionon that a point on the road is acceptable for most teams in the league, especially those who've just been promoted.

I agree up to a point...the point being the stage of the season we are at and our aspirations to get in the play-off's.

 

[Cruyff Turn]

What some people seem to be forgetting is that the 0-0 draw is the new win. "Playing football the S6 way"

 

[Maidenhead]

As a matter of interest, if at season's start, without disclosing the final league positions, someone would have told you that Millwall, without any serious money spent would finish above us this season. Would you have thought that was acceptable and showed progress by the club? I appreciate that this hasn't happened, but might looking at current form & run in. I'm just curious.

That bloody word "acceptable" again.

If the players, to quote Wilder "run around and leave it all out on the pitch" that's acceptable irrespective of the result.

If we get beaten, or get a draw in those circumstances that has to be "acceptable" because the players did their collective best.

The only thing that is not "acceptable", irrespective of results is if the players go out and amble around a la Hammond, come in without breaking a sweat and are happy to collect their rather large pay packets for doing it.

Sometimes teams will be better than us on the day, many teams have much more quality than us but we manage to get results by sheer hard work, some days are very frustrating because a poor team beats us, but I have yet to see a United team that hasn't tried from minute 1 to minute 91 so wherever we finish this season it will have been very "acceptable" by my standards as you can't ask anyone to give more than their best effort.

 

[Chali 2na]

I agree up to a point...the point being the stage of the season we are at and our aspirations to get in the play-off's.

Do you mean aspirations to get in the play offs or expectations?

Reason I ask, is because I "aspire" to get in the play-offs, and i wasn't frustrated/dissapointed by the result. It would be a different case if i expected to make the play offs.

 

[Esablade]

Reason I ask, is because I "aspire" to get in the play-offs, and i wasn't frustrated/dissapointed by the result.

That’ll be because you have a different opinion to me on the match/result.

 

[Chali 2na]

That’ll be because you have a different opinion to me on the match/result.

Yeah, a reasonable one.

 

[Esablade]

Yeah, a reasonable one.

Yep.

 

[ucandomagic]

The table below would suggest that at present we are probably around where we belong, as the colour above us is predominantly red and below us is predominantly green, so the teams above us have generally been better than us in head to heads and vice versa. We have only beaten 2 teams above us - perhaps we should have beaten Bristol C, but equally Wolves played with 10 men and missed a pen and Derby gave us all 3 goals. The losses to Bolton and Hull are the real killers. As Tufty said - top 6 sides win those games and those 6 points would have put is in the top 6 with no losses to anybody in the bottom third. But Derby and Boro are still catchable - Derby are in particularly poor form - and we have 3 of the bottom 4 still to play. Win our next 2 home games and Derby lose to Cardiff next Sunday and we're level on points with Derby.

After all, it's Magic to even be involved in Squeaky Bum Time

 

[stringer]

As a matter of interest, if at season's start, without disclosing the final league positions, someone would have told you that Millwall, without any serious money spent would finish above us this season. Would you have thought that was acceptable and showed progress by the club? I appreciate that this hasn't happened, but might looking at current form & run in. I'm just curious.

Or would most measure progress by how Sheffield United did over the course of the season, rather than bloody Millwall?

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

Or would most measure progress by how Sheffield United did over the course of the season, rather than bloody Millwall?

You know as well as I do that there are various bench marks one can use when assessing our performance this season. In the course of my posts I usually use our form over the last 5, 10, 15, 20 games etc. Others on here have used others, and how our performance compares to other teams, notably Wednesday. All equally valid and worthy of discussion. In this instance, for the sake of debate I used Millwall, slightly provocatively, as they are just as relevant a metric. They were a team that were in the same division as us last season (nearly 30 points inferior) and have not spent vast sums of money on strengthened.