INNOVATIVE TACTICS
Actors can become typecast and so can football clubs. Wilder’s manner may lead some to think he is cut from the same cloth as Dave Bassett and Neil Warnock, Sheffield United’s previous Premier League managers.
No disrespect to those two – both outstanding bosses in their own right – but surely pundit Danny Mills’ head was stuck in the past when he labelled United as ‘direct’ before the season, while only last month West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini called their style ‘totally English’.
Under Wilder, their game is almost entirely possession-based and you cannot talk tactics without a mention of over-lapping centre-backs – roles filled by O’Connell and Basham – part of the fluid interchanging of positions which makes the Blades a threat going forward while quickly reverting into a solid unit when the other side has the ball.
Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa, no mean tactician himself, said of last season’s 3-4-1-2 system: ‘Sheffield United’s manager is someone with new ideas. I’ve seen very few people with these kinds of ideas.’
It would be wrong at this point not to mention the influence of Knill, Wilder’s rather less demonstrative No.2, on the side’s tactics. And their modifications since reaching the top flight have worked a dream.
The four-plus-one in the middle has evolved into a five, the emergence of John Lundstram this term offering extra defensive security while still allowing the Blades to be one of the teams to play with two strikers, the area in which they invested most heavily in the summer – on Oli McBurnie and Lys Mousset.
Their combined £30million cost, though, rather pales in comparison when you consider Sunday’s opponents paid £80m for former Blades centre-half Harry Maguire in the summer. And they will be out to collect their first three points against the other United since the game in the summer of 1992 in which Brian Deane scored the Premier League’s first ever goal.
But while staying among the elite remains their first target, is there any reason to think this Really Wild Story has reached its pinnacle just yet?