Ambitious Blades get ready for the new ‘normal’
BACK IN THE GAME: MANAGER WILDER ADMITS HIS VILLA PARK LINE-UP WILL HAVE FAMILIAR FEEL TO IT
WHEN THREE busloads of Sheffield United players and none of their fans pull up at Villa Park tomorrow night, English football’s new normal will begin.
Along with hosts Aston Villa, the Blades have the honour of kicking off the weirdest runin in the Premier League’s short history. But for all the strikingly different features, one thing will be pretty unaltered according to manager Chris Wilder. His team will still be fairly easy for opposite number Dean Smith to second-guess.
The side which beat Villa 2-0 in mid-December was typical of the other 27 line-ups Wilder has picked in this season’s topflight: Dean Henderson, Chris Basham, John Egan, Jack O’Connell, George Baldock, John Lundstram, Oliver Norwood, John Fleck, Enda Stevens, David McGoldrick and Lys Mousset.
Sander Berge’s £22m January arrival has kept Lundstram on his toes, and Billy Sharp and Oli McBurnie started 2020 in good form in the only really changeable part of the team, the forward line. The rest were givens whenever available – and they almost always were.
“I don’t think there’ll be an incredible amount of changes because there hasn’t been all season but there are still no guarantees or shoo-ins,” reflected Wilder in his pre-match press conference, itself very different from pre-covid versions as reporters “waved” digitally from their spare rooms to pose a question over Zoom.
“The back five has played the majority of matches, the midfield three have too and we’ve switched the boys at the top of the pitch. When Dean gets the teamsheet on Wednesday I don’t think he will scratch his head and wonder what shape we’re playing.”
At a club where continuity counts for so much – which is why Wilder is pleased to have tied Norwood, McGoldrick and Sharp to new contracts since March’s previous game – the hibernation could work against them.
With only one defeat in their last 10 matches in all competitions, the Blades had positive momentum and no major injuries, – two things Villa did not.
With all their remaining Bramall Lane games against rivals for European qualification, the absence of fans will be even more keenly felt, and the change to allow five substitutes from a bench extended to nine ought to favour the bigger squads they are jostling with. The whole occasion tomorrow will be ultra surreal.
“We’ve got three (team) buses,” said Wilder. “The main actors are on the first bus! I suppose when everyone gets off at Villa Park you could pick the team there!
“We understand we’re changing in a big room at Villa Park, not in the changing rooms, so we’re going to have to adapt.
“The amount of staff meetings we’ve had has been unprecedented and the staff are a little bit bored of having them but we have to make sure we get this right.
“It’s not natural for players when there’s a break in play to stand 2m apart but they’ve had to adhere to it.
“(I’ve had) people sticking swabs down the back of my throat and I’ve got used to that. The minimal numbers of positive tests shows the attention to detail that every club has gone into and the responsibility the players have taken.”
There are plenty of excuses to be had, but something else reassuringly unchanged is that Wilder refuses to listen to them.
“I am confident we can pick up and restart our season, but it will have helped some clubs,” he admitted. “I’m not going to spin it, we were on a good run.
“I’m as intrigued as anyone to see if we can pick up in the manner we left off.
“We voted against the (five) substitutions. We believe it benefits the powerful clubs with bigger academies but we were outvoted so we have to go with that.
“The attitude of the players, not surprisingly, has been excellent. As soon as we got (a restart date), the players have been looking forward to it and excited.”
Norwood, Sharp and McGoldrick have signed up for more of the same, and the fine details are being smoothed out for goalkeeper Dean Henderson’s loan from Manchester United to stretch to the season’s delayed final weekend.
Lundstram, Egan and Basham have not yet signed the new contracts put on the table pre-coronavirus and although all are on deals which will extend to the end of next season and in Egan’s case the one after, Wilder has warned there is only so far he will push the boat out to keep them at Bramall Lane.
“We’re in the negotiation phase,” he explains. “The players want the best deals for them and that’s understandable but there is a limit to how far we’ll go.
“We’re hopeful (the three players will stay) but if players don’t re-sign, then we’ll do the right thing by the football club.”
Coronavirus has made the need for prudence more pressing, but it was the same tune from Wilder during the new normal.
The more things change, the more Wilder stays the same.