{"id":426701,"date":"2025-09-15T16:36:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T16:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/426701\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T16:36:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T16:36:32","slug":"sheffield-united-and-a-volte-face-so-extreme-it-could-lead-to-whiplash-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/426701\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheffield United and a volte-face so extreme it could lead to whiplash | Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

HIM AGAIN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the Championship season started you would not have required the prescience of Mystic Meg to correctly predict that a team from the Steel City would be bottom of the table with no points after their first five games. With their club\u2019s very existence under very real threat, most Sheffield Wednesday fans had resigned themselves to relegation at best before a ball was kicked, as long as their owner Dejphon Chansiri refused to sell up. A month on, the presence of their bitter city rivals one place below them at the foot of the table must be a rare source of happiness for Owls fans, in what looks likely to be a long season of unrelenting misery mixed with trepidatious uncertainty. Having lost last season\u2019s Wembley playoff final to a late, late Sunderland winner, the Sheffield United hierarchy elected to end Chris Wilder\u2019s second spell in charge of their club and embark on a new direction. And while \u201cdownwards into League One\u201d might not have been the specific one they had in mind, it is certainly the new direction they appear to have taken after losing their first five games by an aggregate score of 12-1.<\/p>\n

When Scott Parker opined on Sunday that, in defeat by Liverpool, his crestfallen Burnley players \u201chad to go to places that not many humans go to\u201d, he clearly hadn\u2019t factored in the suffering endured by die-hard Blades fans who made the seven-hour round-trip to Portman Road on Friday night. They saw a 5-0 shellacking<\/a> that led to Wilder\u2019s replacement, Rub\u00e9n Sell\u00e9s, being fired from his role as head coach after just 88 days in charge, bringing what the club\u2019s owners had previously described as \u201ca new chapter for Sheffield United\u201d to an unedifying but inevitable end. In talking up Sell\u00e9s\u2019s understanding of \u201cthe power of potential and how to unlock it\u201d upon his appointment, the club\u2019s USA USA USA-based COH Sports ownership group conveyed the impression they might have listened to one episode of the High Performance Podcast too many, even if there was no hint that things would go so pear-shaped, so quickly for the 42-year-old Spaniard who has achieved much more with much less backing elsewhere.<\/p>\n

While Sell\u00e9s\u2019s \u201cability to integrate academy talent, employ innovative recruitment and analytic strategies, play an exciting brand of football, and adapt dynamically to the modern game\u201d were the tenets COH Sports believed \u201cthat the next great chapter of Sheffield United football [would] be built upon\u201d, they are now reported to be in the process of performing a volte-face so extreme all involved may end up with a painful case of whiplash. Having already been fired twice by the club, most recently in May, it seems the man being tasked with writing the next new, hopefully less abrupt chapter for Sheffield United, is a well known local author. Less than three months after being told to clear away his quill, ink-pot and parchment, Wilder has made a sensational return to Bramall Lane<\/a>. Quite what the 57-year-old, who is famously intolerant of the kind of \u201cdo-gooders\u201d and \u201clefties\u201d who won\u2019t let him criticise his players, will make of his club\u2019s woke attempts to implement artificial intelligence and data-led recruitment remains to be seen but at the very least, he might start playing established stars such as Callum O\u2019Hare and Gus Hamer in their proper positions.<\/p>\n

QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

After the goal, Marcus said \u2018well done\u2019, with the eyes of a brother, but he wasn\u2019t laughing. He teases me about headers, and so does Dad, so I\u2019m happy\u201d \u2013 Kh\u00e9phren Thuram enjoyed scoring in Juventus\u2019s madcap 4-3 win over Inter \u2013 especially so given that he got one over his big brother, who was also on the scoresheet. Nicky Bandini has the lowdown on a sensational Derby d\u2019Italia here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Marcus has a word with his little brother. Photograph: Giuseppe Bellini\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n

I pay no attention whatsoever to Scottish fitba, except when Scottish clubs go out of Bigger Cup, and it\u2019s already September, so that\u2019s long gone. However, I couldn\u2019t help but notice that Rangers are nine points off Celtic and only two places off the bottom of the table after five games, which was puzzling until I remembered that Russell Martin was managing them<\/a>. And also that fans of top-of-the-table Celtic are, and I quote, \u2018mutinous<\/a>\u2019\u201d \u2013 Noble Francis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Like Chad Thomas (Friday\u2019s Football Daily letters<\/a>), I also love the verb play that Football Daily does. Sadly, I very seldom get to see my favourite verb used these days, because Alex Ferguson doesn\u2019t make the headlines as often, and typically isn\u2019t angry as much. Gone are the days that he \u2018purpled\u2019 on a weekly basis. Nostalgia always gets you\u201d \u2013 Todd Van Allen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com<\/a>. Today\u2019s winner of our letter o\u2019 the day is \u2026 Todd Van Allen, who wins some Football Weekly merch. Terms and conditions for our competitions are here<\/a>.<\/strong>\u200a<\/p>\n

RECOMMENDED LISTENING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Jonathan Wilson as the Football Weekly pod squad chew over the Premier League\u2019s return<\/a> after the international break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HIM AGAIN? Before the Championship season started you would not have required the prescience of Mystic Meg to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-426701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115209291875487567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}