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Chris Wilder - The full lowdown


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Must say, am a huge fan of everything he's said there. 

Have been sucked in by opening press conferences before but something about Wilder feels a little different...

Bring on Millwall!

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Good morning everyone. I'm a Sheffield United supporter and have seen with interest that you've appointed Chris Wilder. I'm a season ticket and have been for the last 20 years, and I'm a regular at mo

Just saw this one on Twitter... Before Wilder, Boro created more than 3.0 xG twice in 200 games. Wilder has done it in six. 

Just for balance, I had my booster 3 weeks ago and had a slightly sore arm for a few hours, but that was all, don’t let any possible side effects put you off, they are quite rare. 

On 11/8/2021 at 11:22 AM, Zipwire said:

Good morning everyone. I'm a Sheffield United supporter and have seen with interest that you've appointed Chris Wilder. I'm a season ticket and have been for the last 20 years, and I'm a regular at most of the away days (I was at Boro the other week for our pitiful 2-0 defeat), and I've followed football all my life, and got a keen interest in the wider game in general, and thought I'd come on here and give you the full rundown. 

The first thing I'll say is that Chris Wilder is a proper Sheffield United supporter, he was a ball boy at Bramall Lane when he was a kid, came up through the ranks as a player and played around 120 games for us over two spells. The first was under the Dave Bassett reign where we jumped two Divisions between 1988 and 1990. As a player he was ok without being spectacular, he was a right-back who could defend, had a bit of skill and a bit of fire in his belly, but lacked that little bit of pace that would have taken him to the next level. His second spell was a short spell towards the end of his career when as a club we was on a bit of a downer, and struggling financially and he was only signed as a very low risk, cheap option as cover at Right-Back, and this only happened after the caretaker manager we had bumped in to him after he had been part of a pitch invasion as a supporter after we had beaten Coventry City in a FA Cup Quarter Final in 1998. Therefore when he became a manager it was always written in the stars that one day he would manage at Bramall Lane. There is probably a bit of a striking similarity between Wilders affection for the Blades and Tony Mowbray with your team.

As a manager he came in at a time when Sheffield United was at a real low ebb. We had just spent 5 years in League One (a level we shouldn't have ever been at for that length of time for a club of our standing, but ultimately you are only as good as your results dictate and we found ourselves where we was). We was burning through managers like there was no tomorrow, and things had deteriorated that badly under his predecessor Nigel Adkins, that there was a open hostility between the fans and the players culminating in us playing our home game in a toxic atmosphere, the football had been sterile, and teams used to come to Bramall Lane and pick us off at will. When Adkins got sacked, Wilder had just won League One with a low-cost, unfancied Northampton Town at a canter, and there was only one choice for our new manager. Then what happened after that was magical. His first actions was to make local lad Billy Sharp captain, and he released 10 players and banged another 10 on the transfer list, and then rebuilt the side from scratch.

In his first season we got off to a bit of a slow start, with one point from the first four games that saw us drop to the bottom of League One after a defeat at Millwall. He saw the players heads were down, so he stopped the coach on the way home at an off licence, filled it up with beer, and from that point onwards we romped to the League One title, hitting 100 points, playing some superb football, and for the first time, in a long time, there was now a real sense of togetherness running through the club. Back in our first season in the Championship we started well, humiliated that arrogant set of self-entitled fuckwits Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in the first Derby game for a few years and topped the table in November 2017, but the strong wasn't strong enough to sustain a promotion push, so the following summer he went away, we had to sell our best player David Brooks  and he reinvested the money in strengthening the squad, and the following season we found ourselves in a straight promotion fight with Leeds, and they folded and we didn't and after a whirlwind three years we was back in the Premier League, and all this was done against the background of a bitter ownership battle that would have sunk plenty of other clubs with managers without the fortitude of Chris Wilder.

The Premier League was a different story. It quickly became apparent that with the obscene amount of money floating around the Premier League that we was in Wilders words, racing Formula One in a Ford Fiesta. The squad we had got promoted with was pretty much a set of solid, hard-working Championship standard players but it all needed strengthening but we was quickly in a position where we was subjected to paying overinflated transfer fees, and wages, and a lot of the players we signed were 3rd of 4th choice targets, and we had our first season in the Premier League as the team who had far and away the lowest wage budget, but we did well. By the time the first lockdown hit, the combination of players giving it their all, innovative tactics and followed by a set of loud and noisy fans who gave the players the backing they need, we went in to the first Lockdown hunting down Champions League qualification, however after lockdown ended the rot set in. Lacking the support of the fans, things tailed off and finished our first season in a very credible 9th place. The following season our new owner, Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (the worlds skintest Saudi Arabian), had to purchase the ground from our previous owner for £50m, and that came from the clubs Premier League money. At this point he had appointed a technical director who had the final say on transfers, and things became fractious between Wilder and the board. Playing behind closed doors had a huge effect, the players hadn't given up, and we lost a lot of games by one goal. The final straw came with the Janurary Transfer Window where the powers that be deemed there would be no new signing, and that the following summer would be the same. This brought Wilder in to direct conflict with the board and the end had been coming for a while, Wilder possibly staying on too long our of sheer loyalty rather than what was best for him, and I feel that his career has been tainted not through any fault of his own since lockdown.

So what should Boro fans expect from Chris Wilder? The first thing is that this operation won't just be all about Chris Wilder, he is more of a front man for a management team of him, Alan Knill and Matt Prestidge. Alan Knill is the tactical brain behind it all, an astute and innovative coach, who was behind the 3-5-2 system with the overlapping centre-halfs that left most teams without a clue how to counter it. Knill should by right be a top manager himself, but he is averse to, and shuns the limelight, Prestidge is the fitness/conditioning guy who is excellent at what he does, and gets the players playing at their maximum, and Wilder is the one who knits it all together, he is the public face, the one who leads the players and the one who motivates and deals with all the management stuff. He will leave a lot of the training ground stuff to Knill and Prestidge, and that is just what works for them.

Tactically I expect him to play a 3-5-2 system with plenty of subtle variations on it. It can be adapted to a 5-3-2, and during our rise up the league, it was more of a 3-4-1-2 with a Number 10 floating around the hole between the strikers and the midfielders. He liked to play football on the front foot, winning the ball quickly, and pushing forward quickly although he is far from a long ball manager, and attacking wise you'll see a lot of quick passes with the speed of thought, and clever through balls. When it was going well, it was the best football I've seen from a Sheffield United manager.

Transfer wise, given that I would imagine that it is Wilder who has been given free reign over who comes in and who goes out, you'll see him tend to buy British, as his knowledge of the lower leagues is unrivalled. He isn't particularly strong on the foreign market. When it came to signing players for the Blades they had to meet his checklist, and one of the big ones is that they have to have the right character, have the scope to improve and he doesn't stand for players not putting the effort in (something our current manager seems incapable of addressing). I also think the first player he will sign is Chris Basham. He is 33, but he is still the fittest player in the squad, a proper grafter who never looks like he has got the ball under control but he is a lot better player than meets the eye. We will be sad to see him go, but he is a North-East lad, a really good guy and he will leave with his head held high and I hope you enjoy him. 

I think Wilder and Boro will suit each other. Both the Blades and Boro are similar in the sense they are pretty much blue collar clubs, backed by a strong and passionate local support, and the expectations of the fans are similar. Looking from the outside he will be suited to a chairman like Steve Gibson (I don't know as much as you lot about him but he does like a good guy, and given our experience with our current foreign owner you need to hope you can keep Gibson). Wilder will know what you want and expect as fans, and he will have his own ideas about how to achieve that. He will also talk to and listen to the fans and take on board what they have to say. You'll also see him out and out in the local area, especially on a Sunday afternoon in the pubs of Middlesbrough as he is known to enjoy a Sunday afternoon out and out enjoying a few Peronis. 

I think you've made a very shrewd move in moving on Warnock who did a half decent job stopping the rot at Boro but from my view wasn't really going to take you forward, and you've swapped him for a manager who has very much got it all the prove again, a bit of fire in his belly, and to my mind is the best manager outside the top flight. I'm half expecting you will have a bit of a transitional period for the rest of this season, as it will take a bit of time for the players to adapt to Wilders methods, but next season and the season after is when it'll all start clicking in to place. You are very lucky to have got Chris Wilder, I hope you all enjoy Wilderball, and I wish you all the very best. Well apart from New Years Day......

 


I have just got images in my head now of Wilder on a Sunday necking pints in the Pig Iron

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18 hours ago, Smogzilla said:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/chris-wilder-dares-middlesbrough-start-25419351?1=

 

Well he can't be accused of a lack of ambition! Seems punchy and determined.

Great comments, but my main takeaway is how awful the Mirror website is. It's almost unreadable with all the tacky clickbait punctuating each paragraph.

It does sound as though Wilder (a) recognises his past failings and (b) has a point to prove, which is a valuable combination. I don't expect radical change this season, but we could be in a really good place come next August.

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On 11/10/2021 at 12:47 PM, RiseAgainst said:

Great comments, but my main takeaway is how awful the Mirror website is. It's almost unreadable with all the tacky clickbait punctuating each paragraph.

It does sound as though Wilder (a) recognises his past failings and (b) has a point to prove, which is a valuable combination. I don't expect radical change this season, but we could be in a really good place come next August.

I don't think he's failed anywhere in the past really? He's improved every team he's been at by a vast amount. 

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How are you feeling about Chris Wilder a few weeks in now Boro fans?

I've been keeping an eye on you, and it seems like he has got off to good start. Has he switched to the 3-5-2 and has he started to deploy the overlapping wing backs?

I'm pleased for CW and I'm pleased for you, but I'm also jealous as ***. 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Zipwire said:

How are you feeling about Chris Wilder a few weeks in now Boro fans?

I've been keeping an eye on you, and it seems like he has got off to good start. Has he switched to the 3-5-2 and has he started to deploy the overlapping wing backs?

I'm pleased for CW and I'm pleased for you, but I'm also jealous as ***. 

 

 

I really don't think we could have asked for much more so far if I'm honest. We look confident, composed and positive in the way we play the game. We are more organised without the ball and have far more purpose on it. Yes we're playing 3-5-2 and yes on the wingbacks.

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1 hour ago, Zipwire said:

How are you feeling about Chris Wilder a few weeks in now Boro fans?

I've been keeping an eye on you, and it seems like he has got off to good start. Has he switched to the 3-5-2 and has he started to deploy the overlapping wing backs?

I'm pleased for CW and I'm pleased for you, but I'm also jealous as ***. 

Thoroughly enjoying the matches right now.

I don't think it's rose-tinted to say we should be at least 3-4 points better off either.

The only thing I would say is that I preferred Warnock's press conferences.

But I'm much preferring the football right now, even discounting the results themselves.

I really enjoyed the Preston match and we somehow lost that one 2-1, despite being by far the better team.

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1 hour ago, Zipwire said:

How are you feeling about Chris Wilder a few weeks in now Boro fans?

I've been keeping an eye on you, and it seems like he has got off to good start. Has he switched to the 3-5-2 and has he started to deploy the overlapping wing backs?

I'm pleased for CW and I'm pleased for you, but I'm also jealous as ***. 

 

 

Really enjoying it so far. I was a bit sceptical initially but it hasn’t taken long to show me how good he actually is. I feel really confident now with Wilder in charge that we will be in the running for the playoffs. Even if not this year definitely next season 

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13 hours ago, TeaCider24 said:

Thoroughly enjoying the matches right now.

I don't think it's rose-tinted to say we should be at least 3-4 points better off either.

The only thing I would say is that I preferred Warnock's press conferences.

But I'm much preferring the football right now, even discounting the results themselves.

I really enjoyed the Preston match and we somehow lost that one 2-1, despite being by far the better team.

You preferred the lying, the spin and the Boris chat over a truthful and informative assessment?

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I am sorry but I do have to question the sanity of anyone who considers Eastenders Fun..  are you sure that you haven't been watching too much of our earlier football.  It does takes its toll, but we have trained Danish professionals that can help you..  though their treatment always seems to include the phrase "have another One"..  stay safe lads and all the best 🙂 

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