Chris Wilder is back at Sheffield United, his owner insisting that the new manager can achieve the seemingly impossible and keep the Blades in the Premier League. Even with 24 games to go, perhaps it might be wise to temper expectations somewhat. Bettering Derby County’s record low for points in the top flight might be a reasonable start.
Given that even while they are bottom of the table, United already have five points to their name, invoking the dreaded Derby might seem needlessly cruel. Then again this is a team that has just been smashed 5-0 by relegation rivals Burnley, another side who look pretty far away from the base standards of the Premier League in recent years. That dismal display was enough to cost Paul Heckingbottom his job.
It is not just that Sheffield United have sacked a manager who had got the club promoted and taken them to an FA Cup semifinal while under a transfer embargo stemming from financial pressures that would see key players in the promotion side sold. It is that there was no great outcry on Heckingbottom’s departure. That is how bad this team have been.
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To put some numbers on it, Sheffield United have by some distance the worst attack in the Premier League in terms of expected goals (xG), just 10.85, a number which includes two penalties. In just 14 games they have given up shots to their opposition worth a combined 31.27 xG, again the worst mark in the division. But this isn’t just 2023-24’s worst attack and worst defense packaged together. This is all-timer stuff.
In the three seasons prior to this one, only one side, the Norwich City side of 2021-22 who went down with 22 points, had a worse xG difference per game than minus one. Sheffield United are putting their xG difference in the shade at -1.5 per game. Expected goal data can be harder to come by as far as the 2007-08 Premier League, but goal difference, a more accurate predictor of future results than points, is easy. Derby sat bottom of the table after 38 games with a tally of -69. Through 14, the Blades are at -28. Some fairly straightforward mental arithmetic would suggest that United are on a worse trajectory than the worst team in the league’s history.
Into these most trying of circumstances, enter Wilder. His relationship with Prince Abdullah is evidently repaired, the club owner describing Blades fan Wilder as “the best guy on planet Earth to take over the club.” Indeed he went further than that in an appearance of Talksport, saying “Chris is very optimistic he can save the season, he doesn’t think it’s easy, but he thinks it’s still possible. When you look at the table it’s a very special year, a very weird year when it comes to the standings, so it’s still early, the season is still long and we have every chance to achieve our goals.”
Certainly it would have to be a very weird year, the sort where Everton being deducted 10 points is little more than an amuse bouche for all the chaos to come. If Sheffield United are to stay in the division, something dramatic has to change.
Maybe that is Wilder. After all, he didn’t just take United into the Premier League, but turned everyone’s pick for the drop into a top half team in 2019-20. His side was tactically innovative with their use of overlapping center backs, while Bramall Lane was a fortress that repelled the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea. Had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent absence of fans, the Blades might not have sunk without a trace the following year.
That, though, was a team with momentum. Wilder has inherited a side who showed in defeat to Burnley that they lack the quality, organization and even temperament to keep up with their relegation rivals. Perhaps it was a shrewd move to give the new manager a contract until 2025. The first job that is within his capabilities, or anyone else’s, might not be keeping Sheffield United in the Premier League but getting them back to it.
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The post Chris Wilder appointed Sheffield United manager: Can new boss save Blades from Premier League infamy? appeared first on WorldNewsEra.