Football Daily | Sheffield United and a volte-face so extreme it could lead to whiplash

6 hours ago 10

HIM AGAIN?

Before the Championship season started you would not have required the prescience of Mystic Meg to correctly predict that a team from the Steel City would be bottom of the table with no points after their first five games. With their club’s very existence under very real threat, most Sheffield Wednesday fans had resigned themselves to relegation at best before a ball was kicked, as long as their owner Dejphon Chansiri refused to sell up. A month on, the presence of their bitter city rivals one place below them at the foot of the table must be a rare source of happiness for Owls fans, in what looks likely to be a long season of unrelenting misery mixed with trepidatious uncertainty. Having lost last season’s Wembley playoff final to a late, late Sunderland winner, the Sheffield United hierarchy elected to end Chris Wilder’s second spell in charge of their club and embark on a new direction. And while “downwards into League One” might not have been the specific one they had in mind, it is certainly the new direction they appear to have taken after losing their first five games by an aggregate score of 12-1.

When Scott Parker opined on Sunday that, in defeat by Liverpool, his crestfallen Burnley players “had to go to places that not many humans go to”, he clearly hadn’t factored in the suffering endured by die-hard Blades fans who made the seven-hour round-trip to Portman Road on Friday night. They saw a 5-0 shellacking that led to Wilder’s replacement, Rubén Sellés, being fired from his role as head coach after just 88 days in charge, bringing what the club’s owners had previously described as “a new chapter for Sheffield United” to an unedifying but inevitable end. In talking up Sellés’s understanding of “the power of potential and how to unlock it” upon his appointment, the club’s USA USA USA-based COH Sports ownership group conveyed the impression they might have listened to one episode of the High Performance Podcast too many, even if there was no hint that things would go so pear-shaped, so quickly for the 42-year-old Spaniard who has achieved much more with much less backing elsewhere.

While Sellés’s “ability to integrate academy talent, employ innovative recruitment and analytic strategies, play an exciting brand of football, and adapt dynamically to the modern game” were the tenets COH Sports believed “that the next great chapter of Sheffield United football [would] be built upon”, they are now reported to be in the process of performing a volte-face so extreme all involved may end up with a painful case of whiplash. Having already been fired twice by the club, most recently in May, it seems the man being tasked with writing the next new, hopefully less abrupt chapter for Sheffield United, is a well known local author. Less than three months after being told to clear away his quill, ink-pot and parchment, Wilder has made a sensational return to Bramall Lane. Quite what the 57-year-old, who is famously intolerant of the kind of “do-gooders” and “lefties” who won’t let him criticise his players, will make of his club’s woke attempts to implement artificial intelligence and data-led recruitment remains to be seen but at the very least, he might start playing established stars such as Callum O’Hare and Gus Hamer in their proper positions.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

After the goal, Marcus said ‘well done’, with the eyes of a brother, but he wasn’t laughing. He teases me about headers, and so does Dad, so I’m happy” – Khéphren Thuram enjoyed scoring in Juventus’s madcap 4-3 win over Inter – especially so given that he got one over his big brother, who was also on the scoresheet. Nicky Bandini has the lowdown on a sensational Derby d’Italia here.

I pay no attention whatsoever to Scottish fitba, except when Scottish clubs go out of Bigger Cup, and it’s already September, so that’s long gone. However, I couldn’t help but notice that Rangers are nine points off Celtic and only two places off the bottom of the table after five games, which was puzzling until I remembered that Russell Martin was managing them. And also that fans of top-of-the-table Celtic are, and I quote, ‘mutinous’” – Noble Francis.

Like Chad Thomas (Friday’s Football Daily letters), I also love the verb play that Football Daily does. Sadly, I very seldom get to see my favourite verb used these days, because Alex Ferguson doesn’t make the headlines as often, and typically isn’t angry as much. Gone are the days that he ‘purpled’ on a weekly basis. Nostalgia always gets you” – Todd Van Allen.

If you have any, please send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Todd Van Allen, who wins some Football Weekly merch. Terms and conditions for our competitions are here.

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