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Chris Wilder on a rollercoaster 12 months back at Sheffield United
The Star, Sheffield
Follow
06/12/2024
Category
🥇
Sports
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00:00
It's a year plus one day since you took over or came back to take the reins at
00:06
Sheffield United. How would you sum up that 12 months?
00:11
I think I'll sum it up as it has been possibly for the last, let's work this
00:22
out, 67 born, 77, 78 started really supporting Sheffield United. I suppose through
00:29
that period, like every Sheffield United supporter, it's been an absolute
00:32
rollercoaster, the ups and downs of being involved with our football club.
00:37
So I think I'm quite right to say we weren't in a very good place and there
00:50
was a lot of work to be done. In the summer I think initially was to try and
00:56
get through to the end of the season and try and get some respectable results
00:59
and try and put a little bit of pride back into us as a group because we
01:04
were battered and bruised as a football club, ridiculed in the harsh realities of
01:10
the Premier League. Talked about maybe at the start of the season not really being
01:14
set for a return to Premier League and everything that surrounded that and
01:22
come in at a difficult time. We had a couple of decent moments but not enough.
01:27
I went on record saying that the best part of the club was the support from
01:33
our fans and the academy. Knowing there was an incredible amount of
01:42
work to be done in the summer and I think that's my reason Andy
01:47
and I hope you respect it in terms of not really talking about takeovers and
01:52
everything else because my remit personally and from the club was to get
01:59
us back into a good place during the summer. Whether it was recruitment,
02:04
whether it's the rebuild, whether it's the connection back with the
02:12
supporters so that's been my main focus. But it was tough, it was really tough.
02:23
First of all you know the opportunity to come back to Sheffield United.
02:27
I'll be grateful for Prince Abdullah and the board for getting me back in.
02:34
It was a tough time I know you know it wouldn't have been met universally 100%
02:39
with acceptance but I felt a little bit of unfinished business to try and get us
02:49
back into a respectable place over the medium and long term and I think we're
02:54
well on our way to doing that and as I said delighted with the opportunity, grateful
03:00
for that opportunity. It really was a punishing last four or five months for
03:07
everybody, for everybody and for the players as well. I think we had to see
03:12
through that a little bit you know I've been involved in the football club for a
03:19
long time so one of the main advantages I think even before I stepped in in 2016
03:26
one of the things I said was I like to believe I know what good looks like when
03:33
we're all at it and we're all on the same page. I think that was one of the biggest
03:39
things that we had to get back to being all on the same page and you've seen
03:43
you know right away from the start of the season you've seen that
03:46
connection, you've seen from the recruitment point of view the amount of
03:49
hard work that's gone into getting the right players back to the football club
03:52
in terms of the coaching and the preparation of the team. I think
03:57
everybody'd be delighted in our early work and most importantly the
04:04
personality and the characteristics that it takes to be a Sheffield United player
04:08
and most importantly to be a Sheffield United team. We're seen in
04:12
abundance, still a hell of a long way to go, no guarantees, there's no
04:17
shoo-ins, nothing won in early December but we're in a decent place so I think we
04:23
can all be happy for the work. So over the year, as I said at the start,
04:26
rollercoaster through difficult times to hopefully times where
04:32
everybody's enjoying the football and everybody's enjoying watching the team
04:35
play. So how would you sum up the rapid rate of change then given
04:40
the back end of last season, lots of problems, massive changes needed that I
04:45
dare say on the outside we won't see either and yet as we talk now, top
04:50
of the tree, team's in a good place and you know there's real potential to move
04:53
forward. I'll let other people talk about that but I am absolutely delighted and
05:00
in terms of where we are at the moment I don't think anybody really could
05:05
have foreseen that we would be top of the division at this stage of the season.
05:08
People talking about us, you know, are we going to go through the trapdoor
05:12
again, is this the slide, are we going to go back into League One? Maybe it's
05:18
being underplayed a little bit and I know Rob asked that question as well, you
05:21
know, people have this lazy opinion of, you know, we're set to go
05:27
back up, you know, everything's okay, we've just had a poor season, you know, we've
05:31
kept all our players or we've lost one or two but really the group is a Premier
05:38
League team that's had a poor season, that's ready to go back in. The team
05:43
wasn't a Premier League team last year, it wasn't. From the off it wasn't and it
05:47
got brutally exposed and there's no hiding place for that but I'm not trying
05:53
to be controversial but it was miles off of it, absolutely miles off of it
05:57
and we had those fleeting moments of, you know, the win against Wolves and the win
06:02
against Brentford and a couple of other bits and pieces but we were
06:06
undercooked, we weren't ready, we were absolutely miles off of it and I don't
06:13
think it's been a normal lose a couple, bring a couple in, like the majority if
06:19
not all of these Premier League teams go through. It was a complete rebuild, you
06:24
know, you know the amount of players that were out of contract, the amount of
06:27
players that went back to their parent clubs, the movement of the players
06:31
that I had to oversee, players coming in and I think one of the biggest
06:40
things is the change of the style and how we play and I've really enjoyed it, I
06:47
know the coaches have really enjoyed it, Al's really enjoyed it. The feel is there,
06:54
it's a good feel about it, reminiscent of and this isn't, this isn't, doesn't sort
07:01
of go hand in hand and I don't want people to take this as well, he had that
07:05
feel in 2018 and 2019 and we went up, so there's no guarantees because it's a long
07:12
way to go, there's a lot of football to be played but it has got that feel from every
07:16
aspect, from me walking down the road on a Tuesday afternoon, walking the
07:21
dog and speaking to people, I can see people have got the twinkle back in their
07:24
eyes and the love of the football club back on match days, walking, you know,
07:29
going into the ground and seeing everybody involved. Nobody likes losing,
07:33
nobody likes being on the end of beatings, nobody likes to be ridiculed.
07:38
We wouldn't have turned down that opportunity of getting into the Premier
07:41
League, of course you don't, whether you're ready or whether you're not, so,
07:45
but, you know, the feel of winning derby games, the feel of last-minute winners at
07:51
Bristol City, the feel of Tom Davis coming off the bench and scoring and getting a
07:54
top-of-the-table game, you know, and still there's a little bit of pain in there,
07:59
we understand, in the Middlesbrough game and the Leeds game, but for us to be in
08:02
the position is, you know, it's great credit to the work of the staff, getting
08:10
the help that I've had from the board in allowing me to drive that
08:15
recruitment and, most importantly, the players in terms of their attitude
08:21
towards coming to the football club, whether they were coming from a
08:27
distance, whether on loan or whether they were already here and how they've
08:30
connected. So, winning is always a good starting block and we got off to a great
08:36
start, but we've kept it going. We will have disappointing afternoons and
08:41
disappointing evenings, but it's how we recover from
08:45
disappointment and how we keep driving this forward. So, I would say we're in a
08:50
good place, having seen the majority, well, all of the league really,
08:56
whether we've played them or whether we know what's coming in terms of
09:00
the forthcoming fixtures.
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