Where did it all start to go wrong this season?

[The Vicar]

'We will be back', but will it be in my lifetime?

 

[blade too long]

covids been our downfall

we could only afford players who are carried by the supporters to higher levels than they naturally possess

without the fans the adrenalin that pumped up their performances was gone

we cant compete on wages to afford in built quality, but we all knew that ,didnt we

watch us fly when the fans are back

 

[Bladesman]

For me we havent been the same since we returned from "operation re-start" last season

A few things that happened around this time, these are my musings

1. The initial lock down when football was suspended, at one point it looked like the season might be cancelled. Did some of our players do enough to look after themselves during this period?
2. Around this time we tied our "best" players down to new improved long term contracts, most of which have massively under performed since then. Some of them set for life now? (Fleck, Norwood, Stevens)
3. Signing Sander Berge. He walked straight in to the team and kept his place despite some pretty poor performances, i imagine hes on a fair bit more money than most, maybe some players got the tit on? Lundstram?
4. The loss of the Bramall Lane faithful cant be underestimated. Not just the cheering them on thats missing its also the brutal side where we simply wouldnt stand for some of the displays we've witnessed.

Going into this season,

5. The pink kit of doom. Talk about a bad omen!
6. The realisation of where we are financially. We understood that we werent in the market for Premier League players, that we'd have to dip into the championship with a view of signing their best talent. We werent even in that market! We were miles off from signing our number one targets, who all went to our rivals!
7. Signing Ramsdale and Brewster. With hindsight, we really shouldnt have spunked our entire budget on these two, i can live with Ramsdale but Brewster looks like hes not quite ready for mens football.
8. Injuries, theres no denying this has had a massive impact, not just the serious injuries but lots of niggles as well.
9. Not signing anyone in Jan. "one player wont make a difference" Anyone been watching the Lingard show for West ham?
10. Tactics. "its not the system, the system is fine" We'll never know because we havent tried anything else!

Worth mentioning Lunny had already got tit on before Berge arrived regarding his contract.

 

[PokerBlade]

I don't believe any of those signings were down to our scouting network or management team. More like The Prince and van Winckel using their European contacts. I believe Wilder even brought Rodwell on ahead of Retsos during a game, which says it all really. He was incredibly reluctant to use the European loanees. Even when the fans were crying out to give Zivkovoc a chance which he reluctantly did.

Retsos he didn't end up using but he gave chances to Zivkovic. We can criticise the fact that neither player did anything of note for us, but I don't see how that implies that they were foisted on Wilder by the Prince or Van Winckel. If they were recommended through Van Winckel's contacts then isn't that just a sign that we have tried to look further afield? And it certainly doesn't explain Berge, or Mousset.

Wilder's approach when he first came in was sniping players from the lower teams in the UK, as he did with JOC, Stevens, et al. A strategy people had been saying we should employ for a long time prior to us doing it. Up through the Championship I think the only real "coup" we had was landing Norwood where there was competition for him, and that was only because the price tag was low. Clearly there's a problem that we haven't been able to expand out of that market but then, as I said before, it's not necessarily that easy to do quickly and on a budget. Put it this way, if you could just go out and get good players from Europe that easily, every side who gets promoted would just do it and not have a problem. If there were plenty of JOC's around to bring in then Liverpool wouldn't be struggling as much as they are from the loss of Van Dijk.

I don't even know any more. Obviously we've made a mess of things from where we were last season to where we are now so I don't really disagree that much about all the could have and should haves. It's just that when you're on our budget, trying to make do with players like Robinson and Bryan as cover, it's always going to fall apart if you find you're needing to rely on them week in week out like we have. We've spent far more than expected and it's still been a long way short.

There's a lot of criticisms and, being on our current points total, most of them are going to have a fair bit of truth to them. I just can't shake that feeling that a huge part comes down to us getting promoted to the Premier League far quicker than could be planned for and then having wage restrictions that are incapable of bringing in the players we need. Wilder had been pulling rabbits out of hats with the players he brought in to get us here, and even that involved a fair few failed gambles on the way. You can't expect that to last forever, and I can't complain if we just don't have the resources to compete. All we can do is try to come out of this in a stronger position than when we were last in the Championship, hope to get back up again, and keep building as a long term project.

 

[Millhousesblade1889]

Probably spending over £100m on new players and yet our core & best 11 is almost exactly the same as we came up with.

Should we get another go in the premiership under wilder we need a director of football or a better/ wider scouting system

 

[pommpey]

covids been our downfall

No it's not. Why haven't Leeds suffered then? Burnley? Any other supposed mid-to-low-end team? If anything, not playing in front of crowds has done the team some favours. Can you imagine what the reaction would be when we just gave it up vs Spurs or buckled in the dying minutes vs Leicester?

we could only afford players who are carried by the supporters to higher levels than they naturally possess

Again, a poor excuse. We've bought some pretty stunningly expensive players. They've been playing in front of empty stadiums now for over a year now and have gotten progressively worse.

without the fans the adrenalin that pumped up their performances was gone

Disagree.

we cant compete on wages to afford in built quality, but we all knew that ,didnt we

No? Why not just be effective in scouting? What didn't Wilder pick up about Mousset? What persuaded Widler that Brewster was deadly up front in the PL when he's just a nipper and have never played a minute there?

watch us fly when the fans are back

We said this when we dropped in 2008. HMS Piss the League. I think we only need to have confidence in that when we are actually re-promoted and have a working system and ambition to ditch the never-will-plays ad buy effective replacements for the top flight.

pommpey

 

[Fulwood Blade]

Where did it all start to go wrong this season?

1. Utter dependables from last season (Enda, Fleck, Norwood) all losing form.
2. Unexpected, stand out performers last season (Lundstram, Mousset) not making any ounce of impact this season.
3. Significant losses of key players through injury (O'Connell, Fleck, Berge, and now Egan and Basham).
4. Lacking the finances to have real, credible, broad squad depth.
5. Not having the wage structure to tie down first choice targets.
6. Throw into the mix that the confidence was soon shot, and that's a ship that's hard to turn around at the highest level.

Of course, performances like last night makes it harder to be as understanding, but the importance of all of these factors cannot be ignored.

The excellence of last season, masked the fact that the depth of infrastructure in this club simply isn't there, and it couldn't have been before now. The youth are emerging but only just, the signings of Bogle etc, were an attempt to build on that. The wage structure, budget and depth of finances aren't there. We simply do not have that yet, the club is trying to build. Last season showed how we have a first team who have to be fit, at it, and in form in order to compete and beyond that, the quality drops off - rapidly. We have a supporting cast of Bryans, Robinsons and Rodwells as the evidence of that lack of infrastructure. With that, we can't afford the previous dependables to drop off, or to carry passengers.

When you take a step back, you recognise that last season was the outlier, that we are not an established PL team, and you refocus on the idea that this is a journey, about transforming this club from top to bottom. This is a journey to rebuild from L1 away days at Rochdale and we're here ahead of time.

Have the management team made mistakes?
Has the recruitment deserved questioning?
Does the midfield and the supply lines to the forward line drastically need to improve?
Are we too inflexible tactically, currently?

Yes, to all of the above.

I'm not disputing any of that. However, I'm also not suggesting for one second that the only resolution to those issues is to sack the gaffer and start again - that could set us back years. A new man would need time, his staff, his transfer windows, and his budget in order to build his ethos. By which time, we'd be just as at risk of bottom half championship, as several on here fear anyway.

Question the manager, expect changes and ask for improvements - by all means, but stick together for the journey. Otherwise, that's how you quickly end up with Robson, Micky Adams and John Carver as caretaker in quick succession. A group of people who haven't got a clue, don't have a sense of direction, and Adams aside, don't care about our club. Stick with it, and we have one of our own giving their all at the helm. Question that bloke by all means, but back him. Much rather that that some soulless career manager in a suit, a la Marco Silva's Blades. Jesus wept.

Right now, it's crap - the last few weeks of the season are a total write off - and it makes sense to start the inquest earlier, so that the plan for the summer is in place.

Hindsight is a wonderful tool, except no one really possesses it.

The management did what they thought was the correct things, but it's not just one thing, it's many small things.

The overriding one for me - is moving from 3412 to 352 - OK, it worked, but only by us being generally defensive minded which has back fired this season spectacularly.

CWAK thought his over achieving L1/Champ players weren't really good enough (he told us enough times really) and that we needed extra quality.

For me CWAK need to reassess the formation and try to get better players to play it - back to 3412 and stick with it WHEN we go back up. Centre midfield 2 and the no:10 will always dictate your style - so perhaps our centre midfield need to dominate more and be stronger. Strength in a lot of our current squad is lacking.

Loftus-cheek for Fulham was a prime example of the type of player that succeeds in the top division now.

So.......let CWAK start again but from a stronger base and slightly more money - we need to recruit £5m to £6m type players from the Championship - most teams are skint (COVID) so we will have our pick in the summer if we want to go down that route - but recruitment needs to be spot on, which considering the big four spends we've done in the Prem makes it more difficult.

UTB