What can be learned from this season?

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Champagneblade said:
So it’s drawing to a close now and relegation is inevitable. We might somehow rally to take 19th but that would be the best we could hope for and also seems unlikely.

Clearly mistakes have been made, some by circumstances, some also by lack of decisive decision making.

So what can be learned? He’s my non-definitive start of the thread:

1. Set a style early and recruit towards it - to a large degree our focus was heavily around that cheeky number 10 we had. The recruitment of Archer felt more like players we wouldn’t mind rather than players who fit. Either McAtee into the 10 or recruiting another 10 would have appeared the most judicious. If we were using Archer to replace Sharp and then still getting a ten and sticking to 3-5-1-1 then fine, but it didn’t appear the case.

2. Be more organised and don’t enter the season undercooked - at some point decisions have to be made on recruitment. Writing off winnable games effectively because you are having to youth players where new recruits should sit is no way to retain momentum. It shouldn’t be observed at such a high level.

3. Don’t sign players you’ve hardly seen. I’d love to know what redeeming features someone saw in Grbic. I don’t think Wes is a Prem keeper. But I’m not even convinced Grbic is an adequate Championship keeper.

4. Play the percentages with the recruitment - unless highly proven already, stay away from players with obvious physical limitations. Yea, you might see an Messi of such outstanding ability or a Maradona. I’m not suggesting we be myopic, but Traore is your example. He looks extremely ill-equipped for the English game. Likewise we have to get bang for our buck, so paying high wages for many players who have ropey injury records is asking for your season to be derailed by Christmas.

Sarcastic responses also very much welcome on this thread.

What else can we learn?
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I think to point 1, your style needs to be already embedded. so you're adding to it rather than trying to create or rebuild it.
I'm actually pretty confident Wilder can establish this over the next 2 seasons to ensure we're at least organised and well drilled.

I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what recruitment we're going to do for the "great reset", and who he thinks he needs. As last time, some will be here for the long term and others just to get us started but there's lot of options knocking around so it'll be good to see what he does with the budget.
 

The main lesson from this season is to have a richer owner. The mistakes we have made—and there have been plenty of them—have been the result of scrambling about to compensate for the fact we simply do not have the resources to compete at this level.

75% of the stuff in this thread is wishful thinking, hindsight cleverness, or deckchairs x Titanic. Luton have done about as well as possible under similar circumstances and will end up getting relegated with about 30 points despite Forest and Everton having points deducted. They will likely lose their manager this summer. Burnley spent 90 million and aren’t any better than us.

Even having an owner willing and able to chuck money at it is no guarantee now: see the mess Forest have got themselves into.

The real lesson of this season is that it is getting close to impossible to achieve what we are trying to achieve, which is to get promoted and stay up for the long term.

Having said that, we need to radically modernize the off field operations at the club. We did fuck up the contacts and recruitment and perhaps a head of football above the manager would help with that. “Wilder is our Alex Ferguson” is the opposite of what we should be doing. But under this owner I’m not sure we can even afford anything else.
 
cooperblade said:
As an absolute minimum, set a budget now (for wages and transfers) and stick to it.

Tell the manager what decisions will be made by him and what will be made by the board in terms of retaining players - if it's the board, make those decisions now.

Tell the manager what bids would be accepted for which players and stick to it. E.g Arblaster stays unless someone offers £25m.

Tell the manager the approach regarding players with one year left - and stick to it.

Make a commitment to never again have blanket freezes on offering new contracts to players. If the board can't do this, I think Wilder should walk. Happy for there to be parameters, rules etc but just allowing an en masse running down of contracts is stupid and has cost us dearly on many levels.


If Wilder can get the above, then it's on him to build a plan, a squad, and a philosophy with the resources available to him.
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Good post / thanks 🙏
 
We need to be fitter
We need athletic players
We need to sign the best players in the championship that we can afford (Luton)
We need to be able to press high up the pitch.
 
That we are a total shambles, the prince is asking £60m too much for the club, and we need to spend twice that on rebuilding the squad?
 
I think I learned that I don't know what the point of all this is anymore.

I don't know what I want anymore regarding Sheff Utd. The goal was always to make it to the PL and stay in the PL for Sheff Utd to reach the highest rung on the ladder we can. I don't think I want that anymore. I don't like the PL, not just because we lose a lot, its more than that (VAR, Injury time, Subs, wealth gap, lack of connection between players and fans, TV/Podcast coverage etc. etc).

Will I really be happy if we finish top 2 next year? What if we get to the playoff final - will I be cheering for a win?

It seems like the stakes have gone. So what if we miss out on promotion - didn't want it anyway. The tension of needing to win week in week out is lost, when you are not sure you want to be promoted.

I know one thing for sure I want us to be better than Wednesday, better than Leeds. That appears to be the new benchmark.
 
SUFCScorecard said:
I think I learned that I don't know what the point of all this is anymore.

I don't know what I want anymore regarding Sheff Utd. The goal was always to make it to the PL and stay in the PL for Sheff Utd to reach the highest rung on the ladder we can. I don't think I want that anymore. I don't like the PL, not just because we lose a lot, its more than that (VAR, Injury time, Subs, wealth gap, lack of connection between players and fans, TV/Podcast coverage etc. etc).

Will I really be happy if we finish top 2 next year? What if we get to the playoff final - will I be cheering for a win?

It seems like the stakes have gone. So what if we miss out on promotion - didn't want it anyway. The tension of needing to win week in week out is lost, when you are not sure you want to be promoted.

I know one thing for sure I want us to be better than Wednesday, better than Leeds. That appears to be the new benchmark.
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If we don’t go up in the next two seasons then the club as you’ve known it for the past 7-8 seasons will have gone. Given the investment available from the owner it’ll be back to McCabe times at best, having to sell promising players at the first reasonable bid and hovering between mid-table and the odd shot at the playoffs. More likely though, given our comparative spend potential, we’ll be fighting to stay in the top half and staying out of relegation.
Personally, and I do understand your view, I’d like us to build as we did for the previous Wilder promotion and have another go at establishing ourselves in this got awful league.
 
SUFCScorecard said:
I think I learned that I don't know what the point of all this is anymore.

I don't know what I want anymore regarding Sheff Utd. The goal was always to make it to the PL and stay in the PL for Sheff Utd to reach the highest rung on the ladder we can. I don't think I want that anymore. I don't like the PL, not just because we lose a lot, its more than that (VAR, Injury time, Subs, wealth gap, lack of connection between players and fans, TV/Podcast coverage etc. etc).

Will I really be happy if we finish top 2 next year? What if we get to the playoff final - will I be cheering for a win?

It seems like the stakes have gone. So what if we miss out on promotion - didn't want it anyway. The tension of needing to win week in week out is lost, when you are not sure you want to be promoted.

I know one thing for sure I want us to be better than Wednesday, better than Leeds. That appears to be the new benchmark.
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Spot on mate

It’s all so pointless with the current structure and ownership
 
100% agree. Reaching the Premier League is no longer the main motivation. Certainly having been there & experienced it for 3 seasons now, there is so much that sucks the life out of your enjoyment. I live up in Huddersfield & most of their fans feel the same way. Great for a while (1st season) - but just horrible after that.

The proposed change to scrap points deductions & introduce a ‘Luxury Tax’ is also disgusting. Just because they can’t/wont impose proper penalties against rule breakers - they are now inviting clubs to push themselves into so much debt chasing an impossible dream. Guarantee that in the next 10 years a club will go under big time as a consequence.
 
WF10BLADE said:
I'm sorry, but we fuck about every pre season and seemingly only have 1 or 2 ideas, we are often scratching around on deadline day (as this is where we get the best value)

We have effectively known what league we will be in next season since promotion.

There is zero excuse now for not getting our summer strategy in place.

We need to ship out all the shit, get Brewster fit and look to build a promotion team around him.
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Brewster needs to be mentally fit first and foremost.
I seriously doubt he'll ever be.
 
You have to actually have the intention to compete at PL level. Use it as a way to stave off financial apocalypse and set up a "sustainable model" for the future and you'll get embarrassed on a pretty consistent basis
 
Don’t let him go !
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I know he wanted to go , and it was inevitable but I just wonder if he had stopped for one more season we definitely wouldn’t be in this mess !
Players are the biggest assets of a football club and we have always sold our best one’s so that’s why we are where we are !

Buy shit expect shit !
 

bartman said:
How much is the Prince asking for and where did you get the information from ?
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I've no idea, but he can't sell can he, and the figures reported previously were around £115m.
 
Working Class Hero said:
Add Eze, Cash and Henderson as players who we'd have signed if the funds had been made available, and I think we could have been in a very different position.
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Nails it we are fishing in a very different pond think back a few years faulty goal line watch not working technology has it worked Villa most likely relegated could have set them back a few years. Look at them now that's called ambition excellent manager long term project very good squad.
 
BigBed said:
I've no idea, but he can't sell can he, and the figures reported previously were around £115m.
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So how can you say he needs to ask for £60 mill less when you don't knkw what he is asking for ?
 
bartman said:
So how can you say he needs to ask for £60 mill less when you don't knkw what he is asking for ?
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It wasn't a serious post ffs! The club is only worth what someone will pay for it, whether he asks for £30m or £300m, and if his asking price was temping to anyone other than fraudsters and money laundering businessmen, then surely it would've been sold wouldn't it!!
Not rocket science really is it!?.
 
I don’t want the hierarchy to learn any lessons…I just want them to leave. The man said it himself, he doesn’t have the money or inclination to take this club forward….
 
WF10BLADE said:
I'm sorry, but we fuck about every pre season and seemingly only have 1 or 2 ideas, we are often scratching around on deadline day (as this is where we get the best value)

We have effectively known what league we will be in next season since promotion.

There is zero excuse now for not getting our summer strategy in place.

We need to ship out all the shit, get Brewster fit and look to build a promotion team around him.
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Hahaha in his last year of his contract to build a team round him,what in the treatment room ? He’s already got a team round him as there is 12 injured every bloody week !
 
Quite simple. An owner who has deep pockets. An owner who would have let Hecky go, last summer(nice guy, not up to Premiership level). Scouting better. Don't buy top end championship players(simply not good enough). If this cannot be got, don't aim for the promised land.
 
Carlton Blade said:
You have to actually have the intention to compete at PL level. Use it as a way to stave off financial apocalypse and set up a "sustainable model" for the future and you'll get embarrassed on a pretty consistent basis
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I’d love for us to get up and stay up for 5-10 years. That’ll transform the club off the field. But that’ll need new ownership, direction and plenty of nous.
 
Blades1971 said:
Quite simple. An owner who has deep pockets. An owner who would have let Hecky go, last summer(nice guy, not up to Premiership level). Scouting better. Don't buy top end championship players(simply not good enough). If this cannot be got, don't aim for the promised land.
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We have to aim for the promised land regardless because financial apocalypse awaits in the Championship when the parachute payments run out.
 
Rodley said:
I’d love for us to get up and stay up for 5-10 years. That’ll transform the club off the field. But that’ll need new ownership, direction and plenty of nous.
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Average stay for a promoted team that survives year 1 was 4 seasons in 19/20 (I suspect that's declined a little since). That'd do.

As it is, this 'model' needs 3/10 seasons minimum, with accompanying PPs, to be in the PL or there won't be the funds to sustain a promotion challenging team
 
We should have learnt that when we need another manager we have to forget the old boys club and move on, no fannying about
 
Big one for me is not taking the pre season games serious. Think the majority of us would say “it’s only pre season” when we were playing like absolute idiots (yes it’s not always about results but the performances in pre season were shocking), compared to those teams playing in that USA tournament thing they seemed to hit the ground running. It set the precedent for this season in that losing mentality imo.
 
RWE said:
Big one for me is not taking the pre season games serious. Think the majority of us would say “it’s only pre season” when we were playing like absolute idiots (yes it’s not always about results but the performances in pre season were shocking), compared to those teams playing in that USA tournament thing they seemed to hit the ground running. It set the precedent for this season in that losing mentality imo.
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I think preseason will be so important next season, got to be getting players in early and building a team, because we've missed that this season, we simply haven't played as a team often enough.
The past 3 games have seen what Wilder brings to the club, the mentality thats needed, the effort required.
There's a long way to go, and I'm expecting a mid-table finish come next May, and if we do, does Wilder stay, do we twist again?
Going to be a stressful couple of years, unless something special happens????🤞
 

cooperblade said:
As an absolute minimum, set a budget now (for wages and transfers) and stick to it.


If Wilder can get the above, then it's on him to build a plan, a squad, and a philosophy with the resources available to him.
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Does the size of the budget not matter ultimately?
 
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