THREE BLADES WHO PUT THE... STEEL IN SHEFFIELD
Basham, Egan and O’Connell sound like a firm of solicitors but they’re the defensive trio taking the top flight by storm. Martin Keown pays them a visit
AGeordie, an irishman and a Liverpudlian walk into a room, but this is no joke. Chris Basham, John egan and Jack o’Connell are a serious unit, the backbone of Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United team who started this season as favourites for relegation but are now chasing europe.
This defensive triumvirate have been as solid as anything in this city of steel, and they are here to explain that sturdiness to
Sportsmail’s Martin Keown. Before we talk tactics, overlapping, Champions League ambitions and playing against Sadio Mane and Kevin de Bruyne, though, it’s 11.45am and time for training at their Shirecliffe base. They say Sheffield was built across seven hills and it feels as if we are atop one as we admire the view and get blown back, forth then back again.
Wilder, in his adidas Copa Mundial boots, club tracksuit and snood, chats with Keown while keeping a watchful eye on his players. Some are doing running drills, others including Billy Sharp and Jack rodwell are working on team shape. dean Henderson, the widely praised Manchester United loanee, laughs as one shot from his goalkeeping coach darren Ward sends the head of a yellow plastic mannequin flying in front of us.
The first-team fitness centre was once a working-men’s club, and the players park their cars on old concrete tennis courts, but there is a gritty charm to the place.
of course there are concerns now that coronavirus has interrupted the season, but all this United group can do is continue to win whenever they play. Training, ice baths and massages complete, it’s now 2pm and time for a meeting of minds between Basham, egan, o’Connell and Keown, with
Sportsmail reporter Kieran Gill listening in. imagine Barcelona at Bramall Lane, or Bayern Munich trying to cram their army of staff into one of the Premier League’s cosiest away changing rooms. imagine lifting the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium — a competition they have not won since 1925. The night before this interview, Keown draws the names out of the hat for the quarter-finals, live on BBC. He hands Wilder’s men a home tie against his old club Arsenal. MK: i did my best for you, guys. CB: We fancy it at home. We fancy anybody on our day. it could be a special night. When we play an Arsenal or Manchester United, the badge on the front is big and we respect that. But the name on the back is not the same as what it was. We take to that — and you get the feeling that no club wants to come to Bramall Lane.
MK: What if i asked you to choose one: win the FA Cup or qualify for the Champions League? JOC: i’ll take both. MK: Have you taken time out to look at the league table?
JOC: i don’t even know where we are. Where are we? JE: eighth? Seventh?
MK: You’re two points off fifth, and fifth means Champions League ( should Manchester City’s
Champions League ban be upheld), and you have a game in hand. Plus you still have to play Tottenham, Wolves, Chelsea and Leicester. So many teams around you.
CB: it’s in our hands. That’s what the manager said at our FA Cup game the other night: ‘Your season starts now’. it left us thinking: ‘Yeah, let’s go again’.
MK: did your boss warn you not to be starry-eyed? don’t be dazed by the Premier League?
JOC: Swapping shirts — there’s none of that. The target at the start of the season was to stay up. We’ve got nowt to lose. We either get europe or we don’t. nowt to lose.
The statistics say these three have made 118 tackles, 139 interceptions, won 489 duels and headed the ball clear 204 times in the Premier League this season. only Liverpool have conceded fewer goals than them, and keeper dean Henderson is chasing the Golden Glove — and a spot in england’s euros squad. But spare a thought for egan. While United’s use of Basham and o’Connell as overlapping centre backs has been celebrated, he is the man in the middle whose job it is to sit deep and sweep up any danger.
JE: People think i’ve got a cigar out and do nothing. But it’s a lonely place. He (Basham) is down in that corner, and he (o’Connell) is in the other. i’m thinking: ‘if they break here, i’m in trouble’.
Anything in behind and it’s on you.
MK: We used to have this with Tony Adams in our back three. We’d joke about how me and Sol Campbell were doing all the running on either side of him while he’d have his deckchair out. JOC: That’s what you do! CB: We have to attack as well as defend, and John is a big voice at the back. He says a lot, dictates a lot.
MK: So you say when they can and can’t go flying forward? That’s a big job.
JE: After the first 10 games, we pulled the handbrake off and started pressing higher, the lads started bombing on and now we’re going into games expecting to win most weeks. That shows how far we’ve come. Anyone who saw us last year, we got better and better as the season went on. Then this year, we’ve only gotten better and better again.
JOC: The manager expected us to be here, too.
MK: everyone’s pre-season predictions had you going down. Myself included, by the way!
JOC: everybody wrote us off at the start of the season but we know our gaffer and he’d never allow that.
MK: i spoke to your boss this morning. He’s loving it, there’s so much enthusiasm there, and he’s really drilled this system into you, hasn’t he? Players nowadays know so much more about their set-ups than ever before. in the early years when i was a player, everyone was playing 4-4-2.
JOC: even when we play five-a-side, it’s always three at the back. it’s never four in training. Always three. We’ve just started working on something new, too. in the past when we’ve been receiving it, Bash and i have been getting wide, and it limits our options. So now we are looking at the way (Manchester) City do it, in the way they come narrow, to give us options.
JE: remember we play his Arsenal soon, boy, don’t be giving away too many secrets!
CORONAVIRUS has now delayed the FA Cup quarter-final between the two clubs, but these three will be raring to go whenever that clash eventually takes place. each of these men has his own unique back story. Basham, 31 and a boyhood Sunderland fan, was released by newcastle at age 16. He worked in a Mcdonald’s — ‘his scooter got nicked from outside!’, o’Connell delights in telling us — before Sam Allardyce’s Bolton took him on.
egan’s late father, also named John, was a renowned Gaelic footballer whose contribution was so great, a life-size statue was erected in his honour in Sneem, County Kerry. egan, 27, loved that sport. But he pursued english football and was given his chance with Sunderland.
o’Connell and his family moved from Merseyside to Malaga when he was nine years old. School was difficult because he didn’t speak a word of the language, and his football coach would call him ‘guiri’ — a Spanish slur for a foreign tourist. He moved back to Liverpool at 13 and an apprenticeship with Blackburn followed. The 25-year-old is now on the radar of england manager Gareth Southgate.
JOC: i just want to see his impression of doing the Maccies burgers!
CB: i won’t show you guys that… but it’s nice to know what it’s like to be in the real world. Jack has got a good chance of the england call-up. it would be deserved. MK: What do you think, Jack? JOC: i have no idea, to be honest. All i can do is keep doing what i’m doing.
‘When we play Arsenal or United, the badge on the front is big but the name on the back isn’t what it was’
MK: I can tell you guys are in love with defending. So you get a good block in. What feels better? That or a goal?
JOC: Block. All day long. JE: Oh… but scoring a goal… JOC: Yeah but you don’t score! MK: A good block can reinvigorate everybody, especially at Bramall Lane. I remember your boss saying a big tackle at the Lane will get just as big a cheer as any Cruyff turn.
CB: That’s what the manager tells us before we go out. In the first five minutes: headers, tackles, races. Win them and set the tone. That’s what the Premier League needs. It needs that and it will always need that. That’s how you win games.
MK: Are you willing to admit who is the best player you’ve played against?
JOC: Adama Traore. So quick, so strong. You just bounce off him. He’s the one. He’s special.
CB: For me, Sadio Mane. Mane was so… into the unknown. I didn’t know what he was going to do and I don’t think he did either.
JOC: Virgil van Dijk can pick you off with one pass as well.
JE: The player who’s impressed me the most is Kevin De Bruyne. He hit a pass for Sergio Aguero in the only place he could have put it and I’m there thinking: ‘That’s world class.’
JOC: He put it through my legs as well, as I went to block it.
JE: That’s the only time I’ve felt helpless on a football pitch this season. Genius.
WILDER’S first three league games in charge of United in 2016 resulted in one draw and two defeats. His fourth game was away at Millwall — another defeat courtesy of an 89th-minute penalty. It left them bottom of League One. O’Connell played in defence that day and Basham in midfield.
After that game, on the way home, Wilder stopped the bus and gave the players £100 to buy a few crates of beers.
After that, they went on an unbeaten run and were promoted as League One champions. egan signed in the summer of 2018, for £4.1million from Brentford. rule No 1 under Wilder is that they have to remain humble and remember where they came from. Working hard, in training as well as matches, is a must.
MK: Chris, you’re the oldest here, but I’m told you’re the fittest.
JOC: It’s ridiculous. Honestly, ridiculous. He doesn’t sweat. JE: He’s a machine.
MK: I remember Arsene Wenger saying to me: ‘Martin, you’re only doing 10km a game, what is happening?’ So I started celebrating the goals. I’d sprint to the other end of the pitch to be with my team-mates. Suddenly I was hitting 11km, 11.5km. Job done!
CB: easy way to do it! I’m the fittest but not the strongest. That’s something I’ve had to work on this year. The power of the game in the Premier League is so different compared to elsewhere. There’s no hiding place out there.
JE: In my position, if I’m running more, or if I’m doing 11km, then there’s something wrong. Because then that means I’m being dragged everywhere, out of position.
MK: Who were your footballing idols growing up? JE: Chris Basham. CB: Behave. Kevin Nolan was big for me. I cleaned his boots at Newcastle. He scored goals in the Premier League, so I would probably say him and Gary Speed.
JOC: Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher for me.
MK: Probably a Gaelic footballer for you, John!
JE: A few, to be fair! But I really like (Zinedine) Zidane. He was my guy growing up. The first game I properly watched was when he got two goals in the 1998 World Cup final for France. But roy Keane and Denis Irwin are from round the corner. That’s why I chose to support Manchester United as a kid.
MK: Guys, thank you for your time. Here’s hoping we see Sheffield United playing european football next season. To even hear those words, you must be pinching yourself.
JOC: I don’t think that we’ve had time to reflect on it. The games just keep coming and coming. For us it’s just a case of: ‘ On to the next…’ I don’t think it’s sunk in.
JE: It’s the biggest cliche ever but we just take every game as it comes. If you come in every day and watch us, nothing ever changes, no matter where we are in the league. We are where we are now, and we’ll try to hunt whoever is ahead of us down. Don’t fear anyone — that’s the way that it is.
‘Mane was the best I’ve faced. I didn’t know what he was doing. I don’t think he did!’