Chris Wilder set to leave Sheffield United with club facing relegation
Chris Wilder is set to depart as manager of Sheffield United after a tumultuous day at the Premier League’s bottomplaced club. Wilder was due to attend a press conference on Friday to preview Sunday’s league fixture at Leicester but the club postponed that until the late afternoon before cancelling it “due to circumstances beyond our control” just before 5pm. An announcement about Wilder’s future is expected to follow.
It is understood that Paul Heckingbottom, the club’s under-23s manager, will take charge of the side against Leicester. However, no decision has been reached about a potential longterm replacement for Wilder.
The Blades are marooned at the foot of the Premier League table with just 14 points from 28 matches and would have to stage the most extraordinary revival in top-flight history in their 10 remaining matches to escape relegation to the Championship.
Although Friday’s events were unplanned, they did not come as a shock. Relations between Wilder and the club’s board have been strained recently even though the owner, Abdullah bin Musa’ad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, declared publicly last month that Wilder would be retained as manager even if the club did not win another match this season because he would be the best person to lead the club to promotion again. That statement disguised tensions that had emerged between the pair, especially over transfer strategy. The manager suggested last week that he did not know whether he would still be in the post by next season.
United’s struggles this season are in stark contrast to the success Wilder inspired for most of his reign. He was hired in May 2016 after guiding Northampton Town to the League One title and won the league again in his first season in charge of United, the club he has supported since childhood and for whom he made over 100 appearances during two stints as a player.
It took him just two seasons to lead United out of the Championship and then, last season, his team took the Premier League by storm, defying predictions of instant relegation by
soaring up the table with an energetic and tactically innovative style. After flirting with European qualification, they finished in ninth place.
The club spent around £50m in an effort to build on that achievement, including a record fee for Rhian Brewster, but most of the recruits have failed to excel and that fact, combined with injuries to key players, contributed to a dreadful start to the campaign from which United have never recovered. Wilder expected to be given funds in January to repair his squad and mount a fight for Premier League survival, but they did not materialise.