The Star's Danny Hall looks back over a hectic week at Sheffield United which eventually saw Chris Wilder leave his boyhood club to be replaced by Ruben Selles
00:00Danny, it's been a pretty hectic week to 10 days at Sheffield United.
00:05The news broke last week that Chris Wilder may be on his way out at Sheffield United
00:09and we had confirmation this week that that indeed is the case.
00:15Just to have a little bit of a background for everyone, how did we get to this place?
00:19What is the thinking behind it from what you can gather?
00:22Yeah, first of all, never a dull day at Sheffield United, is there?
00:25I mean, I didn't really expect to be talking about this sort of thing at this stage of the summer.
00:32You know, going back to the playoff final, which now seems an absolute eternity ago, doesn't it?
00:38It's not even been a month since that horrible day, another horrible day at Wembley for Sheffield United.
00:44And yeah, all the signs after that were that Chris Wilder would get the chance to sort of go again.
00:50You know, he was spoken to by the owners, excuse me, in the immediate aftermath of that defeat at Wembley.
00:57You know, they gave him sort of reiterated that support that he'd, you know, received pretty much throughout their time.
01:03You know, they gave him a new contract, of course, towards the end of January.
01:07I know they were really impressed with how he sort of steered the ship last summer when there was a lot of uncertainty around Sheffield United and the way that the club was going in the middle of the takeover battle with Prince Abdullah and, you know, the sort of delaying signings.
01:22I think they were really impressed with how Chris handled that and, you know, obviously turned it around and got 90 points on the board and 92 won over the course of a season and, you know, was 15 minutes away from Wembley.
01:36So I think all the signs were that he would get the chance to go again.
01:40I think a lot of people understood that and respected that and agreed with that.
01:45And then it was about, I'm talking now a couple of weeks ago, maybe 10 days ago, that sort of started to get wind of a potential change, which the timing seemed a bit strange to me.
01:56You know, I always thought that if you were going to make a change, you know, do it sooner rather than later.
02:03You know, in terms of what happened at Wembley, you know, after United knew they were going to be in the championship of a season, they knew that the Premier League dream was over for another season.
02:13You know, planning, you know, planning, you'd imagine, would have started then.
02:16Instead, it took, what, two, three weeks on from there for the conversations to really sort of reach a peak.
02:22And then, you know, word started to sort of drift out maybe, I would say, a week or a week, 10 days ago that Chris's future was in real doubt.
02:32I think there was a lot of people perhaps doubting whether that was true when we started to put it out there.
02:37You know, accusing us of all sorts, of stirring and that sort of stuff.
02:42But, you know, these things are meticulously sourced.
02:45You know, we don't talk about people's futures and, you know, people perhaps leaving clubs without knowing that there is a lot of, you know, truth to it.
02:53And then that really starts to gather pace towards the mid to back end of last week.
02:59So I'm just trying to piece the timescale together and the timeline.
03:02And that culminated with sort of confirmation without confirmation earlier this week that it was happening.
03:11You know, probably the worst kept secret in Sheffield United's recent history was confirmed last night on Wednesday evening with Chris's departure and then Ruben Selez being his replacement.
03:23So, yeah, it's created a lot of debate, let's say.
03:27I think the overwhelming feeling amongst Unitedites is one of confusion, shock, a little bit of anger, I would say, as well.
03:38I don't think that's unfair to say.
03:41The flip side is there are people who back the decision.
03:46You know, I think that's a minority from what I've seen and people I've spoken to.
03:49But there are people who can see the sense in it, but ultimately the people who own the club are the ones who made the decision.
03:59They've made a decision which I would say is brave, very, very brave.
04:05You know, I think the easy sort of course would have been to stick rather than twist.
04:11You know, say, you know, there's not a lot wrong here, which I don't think there was.
04:16I don't think there was an urgent need to rip, you know, what happened last season, to rip it up and, you know, drastically change course.
04:23But that's what they've done.
04:24You know, we can't get away from it.
04:26In almost every conceivable metric, you know, this is a big change in what's been, you know, what's been before with Chris,
04:33who was very hands-on in everything.
04:34I mean, Ruben Seles, by all accounts, from what we hear, is that he will be a very much a head coach type model, you know,
04:41where he focuses very much on match day things and perhaps other people behind the scenes take lead on other things.
04:49A very different background to Chris, of course.
04:51You know, Ruben Seles doesn't really have a football career as a player to speak of.
04:57You know, there's no criticism there from me because I haven't got one either.
05:00But it came into the game in a slightly different path to Chris.
05:04You know, whichever way you look at it, it's a big departure from what we've been used to for quite a while now.
05:12Will it work?
05:13You know, no one's got a crystal ball to say whether it'll be a success or a failure.
05:18You know, there's always the proof that the pudding will be in the eating, won't it?
05:22And we'll see when football resumes.
05:25But, yeah, there's been rumours of, you know, a fallout between Chris and the owners over the AI model and the signings from overseas.
05:35Our understanding is that that wasn't the case.
05:37You know, Chris has always been willing to sort of go with the change with the times almost.
05:44I think his stance softened a lot from his first spell and his first departure at Bramal Lane, you know, when things went sour with Prince Abdullah.
05:54I think that sort of, I'm not going to say changed him, but I think that changed his stance on a lot of things.
05:59You know, I think he understood how to be a bit more pragmatic, maybe, if that's the right way to put it.
06:06So, I think, you know, there was always an exception.
06:09Yeah, diplomatic.
06:10Yeah, that's the word.
06:13So, yeah, as far as we know, you know, from what we can gather on both sides, there was no huge fallout.
06:18There was no, you know, showdown thing of if this happens, I'm walking or I'm not the man.
06:24Nothing like that.
06:25I think it's just a case of the Americans, you know, needed a bit of a fall guy almost for what happened last season and they wanted to sort of change direction and saw that this was the right time to do it.
06:39So, they've made the call, which I say is a brave call.
06:42And like I said, we'll only know if it's a success or a failure in time to come.
