Jump to content
oneBoro Forum

Chris Wilder - The full lowdown


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 111
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  •  

    9

  •  

    7

  •  

    7

  •  

    7

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

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. 

6 hours ago, Brunners said:

It was a great read; but just to clarify - he likely doesn't have free reign over who comes in. We have Kieran Scott, our head of football, who has already started targeting foreign - this summer we went for player such as Martin Payero, James Lea-Siliki & Andraz Sporar and I fully expect us to continue dipping into the South American market especially.

From his interview, him and Scott have had a number of chats and appear to be on the same page, however.

Personally I'd be happy to see sporar and siliki sent back in January if they aren't performing to a higher level. Both will be taking up a fair amount of wages that would be better invested in players the new manager wants.

  • Haha 1
  • Confused 3
  • Angry 1
  • Wow 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, Foxtrot Oscar Colin said:

Personally I'd be happy to see sporar and siliki sent back in January if they aren't performing to a higher level. Both will be taking up a fair amount of wages that would be better invested in players the new manager wants.

I still don't understand this, for me Sporar is comfortably one of the best two or three players we have at the club and it's not even particularly close.

Especially in a Wilder team, he should thrive.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
Just now, Brunners said:

I still don't understand this, for me Sporar is comfortably one of the best two or three players we have at the club and it's not even particularly close.

Especially in a Wilder team, he should thrive.

He was dropped for the west brom game and for me we looked a better unit with 2 lads pulling their weight up top. For me Sporar looks content to coast for long spells in games doing the bare minimum physically hoping he's going to get a through ball. Good footballer in flashes but doesn't look like he has the desire to play for the team. I don't think that will wash with wilder and I believe its why warnock dropped him for the WBA game which was the best team in terms of league position we have played for a while and when he came on he was poor, I do think he has the potential to do alot more but I'm not sure he has the attitude or desire to change his game to achieve it. Siliki has just been poor throughout and I'm not sure he's got what it takes to make it in English football. It will definitely be interesting to see what wilder can do with both but I suspect if they carry on in the same vein then I doubt he will want either from what I've seen of players when he was at sheff utd. Maybe the OP can shed a bit more light on what he will expect from the players individually to contribute to the team as a whole. 

  • Confused 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, 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......

 

Cheers for this!

Always had a soft spot for United, my Grandad was a season ticket holder at the Lane most of his life and I used to live on Eccy Beach as a student so i've always had links to The Blades even if they aren't my team.

Tough question, but from what you know about our current squad, do you think we have the right players to implement the 3-5-2 system?

For me, there are players like McNair and Fry who will fit in as two of the CBs but I'm worried about how some of our midfielders like Crooks and Payero will fit into that system. What does Wilder expect of his CMs?

Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, RealSlimSladeyy said:

What a contrast from the West Brom fans warning us about Pulis hahaha

Cheers for the extensive write-up, even more excited now utfb

To be honest he is a complete contrast to Pulis.

I remember seeing Boro at the Lane under Pulis at a night match, think it was either the 2-1 win to us, or the 1-0 win the following season, and thinking it was the worst football I had seen for years. It just seemed to be play for set pieces and let Adama Traore take the long throws. 

Thankfully Pulis got the opportunity to sprinkle some of his stardust at Hillsborough last season.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

This is all great stuff @Zipwire, thanks for the insight.

It's interesting what you say about him and his staff, as well as the transfers. We've just recently appointed Kieran Scott from Norwich as our Head of Football and he was Head of Recruitment down there. You'd have to assume he understands the role Scott has at the club and vice versa, Scott should understand how Wilder operated at Sheffield United. You saying this just adds to that concern for me.

It's also a bit concerning from a 'manager' point of view. Again, I felt Wilder was pretty hands on with the managing side of it and that maybe is less of a concern than the above. But I always felt we would be after a head coach rather than a manager and that doesn't seem like what we're getting. Maybe this just tells us more about what to expect from Scott whilst he's here, though.

I don't think you should be too concerned as Wilder will have done his due diligence, as would have Kieran Scott, and they should have identified a clear way of working. 

Given what happened at Bramall Lane after Jan Van Winckel was appointed Technical Director, I'd be sure that Wilder has made it known that he will need to be the man who has the final say about who comes in, and they'll have already come to agreement about how they will work together,

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, boro-unger said:

Thanks for taking the time @Zipwire. I am looking forward to seeing how it all turns out. 

Are there any other players currently at Shef Utd (or former Shef Utd players) you think Wilder will want to bring in in January/Summer?

 

As I've already alluded to, Chris Basham is the one that stands out the most. Our new manager has dropped him in favour of a weak as ***, ball playing centre-half in Ben Davies who looks half the player that Bash is. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see him go for the likes of John Egan, George Baldock, Oli Norwood or John Fleck.

Possibly he might also look at a loan for Oli McBurnie.

 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, boksicdink said:

Cheers for this!

Always had a soft spot for United, my Grandad was a season ticket holder at the Lane most of his life and I used to live on Eccy Beach as a student so i've always had links to The Blades even if they aren't my team.

Tough question, but from what you know about our current squad, do you think we have the right players to implement the 3-5-2 system?

For me, there are players like McNair and Fry who will fit in as two of the CBs but I'm worried about how some of our midfielders like Crooks and Payero will fit into that system. What does Wilder expect of his CMs?

 

No worries.

To be honest I've been a bit Middlesbrough neutral in the past. Never really had a soft spot for you, but never really disliked you, although years ago I worked away had a couple of mates who are Boro fans who I've stopped in touch with, and I've got good memories of a trip to Ayresome Park on Easter Monday 1995 with a group of mates when we was all teenagers on our first proper away day. 

I don't know a huge amount about your current squad, but in a back three, he will favour two ball playing centre halves, one on the left and one on the right, and one that holds it all together. Maybe that would be a role for Sol Bamba.

He will use two wing-backs who do the defensive side well, but look to get forward whenever they can.

From his CMs, you can expect one who can press and put a tackle in, as well as a ball playing midfielder, then depending on the variation he used, there will be either a box to box type Midfielder or someone playing a more forward, almost like a Number 10. 

I'm not sure where Eccy Beach is, although I'm guessing you was probably a student and lived off Eccy Road.

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, GrimsbyBoro said:

Quick question about CF’s there seems to be quite a few ‘big man upfront’ types signed by Wilder. 

Seen he signed Washington Madine and a few others.  Is this his normal type of striker?

Does this mean Ikpeazu will be his number 1 choice?

Link to post
Share on other sites
29 minutes ago, Downsouth said:

Does this mean Ikpeazu will be his number 1 choice?

I'd be surprised if it wasnt Coburn who got the first crack at it, hes the only player I recall Wilder directly mentioning in his first interview.

Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, Zipwire said:

 

As I've already alluded to, Chris Basham is the one that stands out the most. Our new manager has dropped him in favour of a weak as ***, ball playing centre-half in Ben Davies who looks half the player that Bash is. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see him go for the likes of John Egan, George Baldock, Oli Norwood or John Fleck.

Possibly he might also look at a loan for Oli McBurnie.

 

What about Enda Stevens is he for sale?!

Link to post
Share on other sites

just an addition to Zipwire from a Blade supporter relative of mine

"I think Boro have hit the jackpot.

Your promotion chances have just gone up x10.

Probably not this season but I think you will be rolling along next.

I’ve always liked Warnock as well but he needs to retire and you were going nowhere with him."

 

Add to that I used to live on Sheaf Gardens and maybe I ought to know more about the Blades than I do  .......  I spent enough time in the Sportsmans

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Rishworthian said:

just an addition to Zipwire from a Blade supporter relative of mine

"I think Boro have hit the jackpot.

Your promotion chances have just gone up x10.

Probably not this season but I think you will be rolling along next.

I’ve always liked Warnock as well but he needs to retire and you were going nowhere with him."

 

Add to that I used to live on Sheaf Gardens and maybe I ought to know more about the Blades than I do  .......  I spent enough time in the Sportsmans

0 x 10 = 0?

If my secondary school maths serves me right 🤓

  • Haha 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...