WhyWilder and pal Knill are step ahead
I’D been without a club for almost a fortnight when Chris Wilder picked up the phone in January 2014. The offer was a deal until the end of the season at Northampton, the club he’d just joined as manager and 92nd in the Football League.
It was on half the money I’d been earning at my last club, Crewe. Come and help us stay up, he said, and earn a better deal.
I wasn’t the only player he said that to, of course. He knew exactly what he was doing: signing a host of players who were fighting for their own futures in tandem with the club’s.
We survived on a nerveshredding final day of the season, and I earned an extended stay.
What Wilder has done since, however, has been nothing short of remarkable.
After Northampton’s League Two triumph in 2016, his move to boyhood club Sheffield United saw them romp to the League One title last season.
Secret
At the time of writing, they sit outside the Championship’s top two on goal difference.
So what has been the secret to his success? While resources and surroundings have altered somewhat since our time at Northampton, his blueprint has remained largely unchanged.
“It’s not just about what you say in boardrooms or what great sessions you can put on,” he told me last year. “You’re only as good as your players. You have to go out and do the groundwork.”
If that sounds basic, that’s because it is. But his knowledge of players at all levels of the game rivals that of anyone I have encountered in the game.
At Northampton, Wilder and his assistant Alan Knill were often showered and changed sharp after training, ready to drive off to some corner of the country to take in an under-23 game or two. It was the same story most evenings – sometimes even on Friday nights while we were ensconced in our team hotel.
Wilder sees character as being paramount, along with the drive to succeed, whether to prolong your career, get it off the ground or play at a higher level.
He likes players with a voice in the changing room, leaders on the pitch; players with a bit of fire and brimstone, not dissimilar to the man himself.
Most of the squad he has built at Sheffield United is full of players who are playing for the biggest club of their careers, now desperate to establish themselves in the Championship.
Plus, he places great value on a those old, experienced heads, like Billy Sharp and Leon Clarke, who he undoubtedly gets the best from.
He loves something to rally against, too, using the doubts of others as motivation. At Northampton, first he rallied against those who had written us off as doomed. Then, amid serious financial troubles, staff going unpaid, it was siege mentality.
Despite the old school ethos, Wilder and Knill are no luddites and are adept on the training ground. Knill, who I also worked with for 18 months at Rotherham, is a talented coach.
Training is intense and highly competitive, and when it comes to preparing the team shape and dynamic for games, that’s when Wilder comes to the fore.
At Northampton we analysed every opponent; the defence would pore over goals we had conceded and be given stats about where our opponents’ chances originated.
There is no doubt, though, that the more prosaic virtues of hard graft, team spirit and earthy camaraderie are held above all else. Very British traits; it is perhaps no surprise they have a squad solely comprising of Brisitsh and Irish players.
Methods
The question, then, is whether Wilder’s methods could carry the same weight in the Premier League, where there are egos, vast sums of money and the world’s elite talent to contend with.
Burnley, under the hugely impressive Sean Dyche, are proving that a similar collective spirit is a force to be reckoned with, and I believe Wilder could do the same.
I say all this despite him being someone who forced me out of the club exactly a year after he picked up that phone. Our form had slumped, January arrived and he needed to freshen up the squad.
When Grimsby came in, he made it clear there was little choice in the matter – I had to leave. I may not be the first to point out that he has a ruthless streak, but I saw it up close and personal.
Sometimes, though, that is what’s needed to succeed. And Wilder’s success shows no sign of wavering. Sheffield United will be desperately hoping for his ascent to continue apace.