Perspective, patience and a reminder that supporting United doesn’t have to feel like hard labour. Jon Bradley argues that we can — and should — enjoy the ride.
A calm and reasoned response. It seems that the Blades may be settling down a “good” season. After the Selles’ fiasco, we’ve calmed down a lot; have a manager we can trust (everyone makes the odd bad decision, don’t they?) and players who are developing more and more as the season progresses.
In these circumstances, I agree we can forgive the mid-game brain farts and it’s nice to be able to relax and concentrate on just enjoying the football.
This what it is to be a Blade. If we don’t drop a clanger, someone else does to spoil the party (changing Euro qualification rules, illegal player registrations!). Nothing annoys me more than fans in the prem moaning about not winning every competition every year. That’s not what being a fan is about.
Great piece. The Ruben Selles Experience seems to have generated a bipolar characteristic within most Blades. Your point about season over or momentum is spot on. So often in the football industry, managers and pundits alike talk of momentum. How on earth do a squad of hastily assembled players recover from the first 6 weeks? However we finish the season, we must build the momentum into next season. Quiet, positive consistency builds momentum. I'll finish there before this turns into the High Performance Podcast. Yuck.
I love your point about it either being catastrophe or momentum. Is it because we are just unused to having a season where we are likely to finish mid table and we don’t know how to handle that? We need advice of Preston and QPR fans of what to do when your club just sits in the middle of the Championship.
It is not all cheering and upward momentum for the blades at the moment, but some positives with, as you mentioned many players now coming through the club, and I think the work done in the background by the club in this area is not to be underplayed and not down to sheer luck.
The long term project is still carrying some uncertainty, as the new board had been very vocal on a data driven approach, though I see no harm in present moment in having Wilder steadying the vessel on things, where a definite pause is required, while we re-evaluate.
For the future I would like to see us gain a foothold in the AI market, but for now expectations need to land somewhere in the middle of too high (playoffs too far, but lets dream) and a steady top table finish.
I believe if the change had not been made when it had in bringing Wilder back, we may have been looking at tumbling back into league 1 and possibly a few more years down there (we all remember how hard this league was to get out of)
Yes, lets enjoy the ride and I will have some gratitude for this season while in it and competing
Thanks, Jon
A calm and reasoned response. It seems that the Blades may be settling down a “good” season. After the Selles’ fiasco, we’ve calmed down a lot; have a manager we can trust (everyone makes the odd bad decision, don’t they?) and players who are developing more and more as the season progresses.
In these circumstances, I agree we can forgive the mid-game brain farts and it’s nice to be able to relax and concentrate on just enjoying the football.
What’s not to like?
Sue.
This what it is to be a Blade. If we don’t drop a clanger, someone else does to spoil the party (changing Euro qualification rules, illegal player registrations!). Nothing annoys me more than fans in the prem moaning about not winning every competition every year. That’s not what being a fan is about.
Great piece. The Ruben Selles Experience seems to have generated a bipolar characteristic within most Blades. Your point about season over or momentum is spot on. So often in the football industry, managers and pundits alike talk of momentum. How on earth do a squad of hastily assembled players recover from the first 6 weeks? However we finish the season, we must build the momentum into next season. Quiet, positive consistency builds momentum. I'll finish there before this turns into the High Performance Podcast. Yuck.
I love your point about it either being catastrophe or momentum. Is it because we are just unused to having a season where we are likely to finish mid table and we don’t know how to handle that? We need advice of Preston and QPR fans of what to do when your club just sits in the middle of the Championship.
It is not all cheering and upward momentum for the blades at the moment, but some positives with, as you mentioned many players now coming through the club, and I think the work done in the background by the club in this area is not to be underplayed and not down to sheer luck.
The long term project is still carrying some uncertainty, as the new board had been very vocal on a data driven approach, though I see no harm in present moment in having Wilder steadying the vessel on things, where a definite pause is required, while we re-evaluate.
For the future I would like to see us gain a foothold in the AI market, but for now expectations need to land somewhere in the middle of too high (playoffs too far, but lets dream) and a steady top table finish.
I believe if the change had not been made when it had in bringing Wilder back, we may have been looking at tumbling back into league 1 and possibly a few more years down there (we all remember how hard this league was to get out of)
Yes, lets enjoy the ride and I will have some gratitude for this season while in it and competing