Roy's View From Social Media

The Beatles: "And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the hearts you break [at Wembley]."

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Andrew Hague

How grimly predictable that all was...

United entered April in euphoric mood after a victory over rivals Wednesday was followed up with an emphatic 3-1 win over in-form Coventry City. Top of the league with Leeds stuttering, it seemed the Blades were peaking at the right time. A trip to the Manor Ground to play struggling Oxford United was seen as a great opportunity to put even more distance between them and the teams below. Unfortunately, a lacklustre United ended up on the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline as they struggled to deal with Oxford’s direct tactics. Whilst a huge disappointment, this was the Blades’ first away defeat since New Year’s Day, and fans were keeping their cool:

United didn’t have long to wait to get back to winning ways, with Millwall next up at Bramall Lane the following Tuesday. However, after another poor display, the Blades were left reflecting on another defeat, once again going down 1-0. United now found themselves out of the automatic promotion places for the first time all year, and the whole club was nervous. Fans were doing their best to think of ways to rally the team:

A game away at bottom club Plymouth was exactly what United needed to restore confidence and get themselves back into the promotion mix. The Pilgrims were all but relegated, and unsurprisingly United went 1-0 up in the first half when Jesurun Rak-Sakyi opened the scoring with a peach of a finish:

The Blades were still in the lead as the game entered its final 10 minutes, but those 10 minutes were all it took for Argyle to destroy United’s season. Poor defending saw the home side equalise before going on to win with just 2 minutes to spare. Game over. Automatic promotion hopes over. In just 8 days, United had gone from top of the table to needing a miracle to have any hope of catching Leeds and Burnley in the top two.

The mood shift in such a short space of time was extraordinary, and United knew that a loss at home to relegation-threatened Cardiff City on Good Friday would mathematically end any hopes of finishing the season in the automatic promotion places. To their credit, Blades won 2-0 in an albeit unconvincing display, goals from Gus Hamer and Ben Brereton Díaz enough to beat a poor Bluebirds side who later sacked their manager, Omar Riza:

The Cardiff victory had given United a sliver of hope in their improbable dream of still getting into the top two. Burnley were the team in second, and it was they whom the Blades would face next in an Easter Monday clash at Turf Moor. A Clarets win and it was all over; a Blades win and there was still a small chance things could change again. Alas, this would be the end of the road for United’s automatic promotion hopes, as two Josh Brownhill strikes either side of Tom Cannon’s first goal in a Blades shirt were enough to see Burnley win 2-1 and gain promotion back to the Premier League:

So, the play-offs it was, and you’d have been hard-pressed to find many Unitedites who were optimistic about our chances:

April had been a truly terrible month for United, but with two games left to go, not all fans were giving up hope as the Blades travelled to the Bet365 Stadium to face Stoke City in a televised Friday night game:

Despite the Potters still needing points in their relegation battle, it was United that ran out 2-0 winners. Sam McCallum and Andre Brooks grabbed the goals in a meaningless victory for the Blades, who by now were well and truly focused on how their play-off hoodoo could finally be overcome:

The Blades saw out the regular season with a 1-1 home draw against Blackburn, Anel Ahmedhodžić getting the goal that pushed Rovers out of the play-off places, meaning United would face Bristol City to begin their 10th play-off campaign. Despite the horrendous end to the season, fans were still optimistic as they scrambled to get tickets for the first leg at Ashton Gate:

United began well and had already had a goal dubiously disallowed when, in the last minute of the first half, Robins defender Rob Dickie brought down Kieffer Moore in the area to earn himself a straight red card and simultaneously gave United the chance to go one up from the penalty spot. It was a clear sending-off, despite a certain co-commentator having a different view:

Harrison Burrows made no mistake from the spot to give United a priceless lead. In the second half, United played the 10 men of Bristol City perfectly, tiring them out before bagging two late goals from substitutes Brooks and Callum O’Hare. It left United heading into the home leg with a three-goal advantage, but nobody was counting their chickens just yet:

In reality, though, there was little need to worry, and from the moment Moore headed United into a 4-0 aggregate lead towards the end of the first half in the second leg, it was party time at Bramall Lane. Hamer and O’Hare added goals in the second half to give United a play-off record 6-0 aggregate victory. The Blades were off to Wembley again—and this time, they were going there in form. Play-off memories still hung heavy in the mind, but surely this was the best chance United had ever had of ending their 100-year Wembley hoodoo. It was Sunderland in the final, a team that had only won 2 of their last 9 games and had only scraped through to the final with a last-minute extra-time winner in their play-off semi-final. This was the time. It had to be…

I’ve thought long and hard about what to write about the final. In the end, I’ve decided to write little. What can you write? Everybody reading this will know what happened. The glory of going 1-0 up, then dreamland at 2-0, before VAR and all that. That first 30 minutes was the best we’ve played in a final in living memory. This time we did turn up. We did score. We did celebrate… and yet here we are, contemplating another season in the Championship. At 4:30pm on Saturda,y the 24th of May, we were promoted. By 5pm, we had lost. Two goals in the last 15 minutes in Sunderland’s only small spell of the game were enough to make it 10 without answer for United. You can’t help wondering—if it didn’t happen this time, then will it ever happen?

It’s still too raw to talk about. It’s still too raw to talk about next season. We will all be there as usual, but this one is going to take a while. This one was different from the others, and there are no words that make the grieving process speed up. The only consolation I have to offer is that Sheffield Wednesday still currently exist, doing what they do:

But in reality, nothing can take away that feeling that this was our time. “There’s always next time,” they say, but is there really? It doesn’t feel like it right now. For now, we just have to sit through the summer, wondering what might have been and recharge for next season. We’ll likely have forgotten about it all by the time the fixtures come out, right? And we’d have only got battered every week in the Prem anyway, so who really cares? Not me. Definitely not me.

See you next season.

UTB!!