Blades are hurt after missing out on Europe
CHRIS BASHAM believes Sheffield United’s close-knit squad helped get them through the coronavirus lockdown, although he admits to being disappointed they could not finish an incredible first season back in the Premier League on a high.
The Blades were seventh when the pandemic brought fixtures to a halt, behind Wolverhampton Wanderers on goal difference with a game in hand.
Despite the campaign resuming under conditions which favoured the bigger squads – with more substitutes allowed and a more condensed fixture list – United were able to finish ninth, their best performance since 1992.
Centre-back Basham admits he was disappointed three consecutive defeats to finish denied them a maiden European campaign.
Physically and mentally Basham says the lockdown was tough, but the unity within the squad helped.
“It was three (fitness) sessions a day, and then there was the shock of spending all that time with your family and then leaving them (when the games resumed in mid-June), it was a shock to the system,” reflected the Blades’ longest-serving player, who last weekend signed a new two-year contract with the option of a third.
“It was the whole thing of being at home, being a Premier League footballer and not being able to do anything about it.
“We were lucky that we’re a close-knit group. We had a group chat and we were all in there because some people some days were down, some days were up and it was a bit weird.
“We were lucky the technology allowed us to do that and lucky the club gave us some fitness apparatus as well because all the gyms were shut down.
“It was a question of how we were going to keep fit and it was really tough for my body because I needed to stay as fit as I could because I knew I was going to come back to play as an overlapping centre-half. I’m not a lover of training by myself either.”
When the football resumed, the Blades faced 11 behindclosed-doors games in 39 days and were unable to replicate the consistency they had shown before lockdown.
Twice they had runs of three consecutive defeats sandwiching an impressive stretch where they took 10 points from Tottenham Hotspur, Burnley, Wolves and Chelsea.
“It was a bit of a shock to go from Saturday-Saturday to a Saturday-Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday, all different days,” said Basham, who along with wing-back George Baldock and Enda Stevens started all 38 league matches last season. “It was all a bit muddled up.
“None of us were fully used to it at all. I’m hoping next season is a little bit more settled down.
“I think we were all astonished at what we’ve done with a little bit of disappointment at the end of it because we wanted to push for that European spot.
“The manager kept pushing us for that but we got pipped at the line.
“We would have loved to have taken it into the last game at Southampton knowing if we won that game we’d be in Europe and if we lost we wouldn’t, but that it was in our hands.
“We had some great results on the resumption, but as footballers I don’t think we enjoyed it as much as we should have without having the fans there and no laps of honour at the end.
“There would have been 36,000 Sheffield United fans cheering our names because of how well we did.”