ROY'S VIEW ON SOCIAL MEDIA: SEASON REVIEW

CAUTION: for anyone lucky enough to miss the last 12 months, this post contains spoilers...horrible ones.

What a barrel of laughs that was…

Andrew Hague:

There is little doubt that Sheffield United’s pre-season of 2023 will be a reference point for many years to come. When fans become frustrated about signings not coming through the door quickly enough, or they despair at key players being sold, the moment will always be held up against the summer of 2023.

“Yeah it’s bad, but remember the season we sold our two best players on the eve of our return to The Premier League?”.

In fact, the whole 2023/24 season will be used as supportive evidence as to why “things aren’t that bad”.

United started their season back in the big time as they intended to go on by selling Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge, with no replacements in place, just weeks (or days in Berge’s case) before the season kicked off.

Poor old Paul Heckingbottom, the manager who had guided the Blades to promotion against the backdrop of financial chaos, was left to start the first game of the season against Crystal Palace with a team that must rank as one of the worst to ever line up in a Premier League game. Ben from The Shoreham View was all of us when the first 11 for the opening game was announced:

From the hope when seeing that the team news was out…

To the confusion that Basham and Osborn were in midfield…

To the realisation that we would be playing two kids up front with no previous starts between them…

To the despair that in an hour’s time this team had to play in the strongest league in the world…

It was no surprise to anyone that the Blades succumbed to a 1-0 defeat, looking way off the standard required. This would be the first of three successive defeats to start the season before United finally got some new signings through the door, after which we were rewarded with our first point of the season at home to Everton. This was followed up by a sickening defeat at Spurs where The Blades somehow went into 14 minutes of injury time a 1-0 up only to lose the game 2-1.

So…1 point from 5 games wasn’t an ideal start but United had competed in every game so far and had shown signs that they could pick up points at this level. The mood in the fanbase was fairly positive despite the results.

And then Newcastle happened…

I won’t put you through the details of what happened at Bramall Lane on the 24th of September 2023, but in case you’d forgotten, United lost 8-0 and entered the record books with their heaviest-ever league defeat. And from then on things spiralled out of control.

Defeats to West Ham, Fulham, Man Utd and Arsenal followed and United’s performances were so bad that they weren’t only embarrassing themselves but the Premier League.

Blades fans’ optimism, by this point, was as low as our league position. But when Wolves came to town in November, the team, at last, gave us something to cheer. With the game tied game at 1-1 in the 10th minute of injury time, United were awarded a penalty. Captain Oliver Norwood stood over the ball knowing a goal would at last seal three precious points for the winless Blades. The pressure was enormous but Norwood kept his head and blasted home to give the Blades victory with the final kick of game. The outpouring of joy, not to mention relief, was there for all to see and hear. As we finally got to sing the “Hecky and Stuart McCall” song again, it seemed like the misery and complaints of the last 10 games had been forgotten with one strike of a football:

United followed on from their first victory of the season with a credible point at Brighton and now somehow found themselves off the bottom of the table. A win against Bournemouth at the Lane would have, amazingly, seen United climb out of the bottom of the three.

But that just wouldn’t have been United in 23/24.

Instead, the Blades lost 3-1 and just over a week later manager Paul Heckingbottom was relieved of his duties after overseeing a 5-0 hammering away at Burnley:

For months the shadow of former manager Chris Wilder had loomed over Heckingbottom, with rumours rife of a sensational return to the Bramall Lane dugout for the man who had taken United from League One to the Premier League. Just hours after PH left S2, it was announced that Wilder had signed an 18-month deal. Less than three years previous, the roles had been reversed and it was Heckingbottom who had replaced Wilder with the Blades rock bottom of the league. Fans were left questioning the long-term plan of the club:

Initially, the return of Wilder saw a small upturn in fortunes. A good performance in defeat in his first game against Liverpool was followed by United’s second win of the season at home to Brentford.

A defeat away at Chelsea was disappointing but next the Blades grabbed a fantastic point away at Champions League challengers Aston Villa. Wilder had achieved 4 points from his first 4 games back at the club, no mean feat given the quality of opposition faced, and there was now genuine hope that United still had a puncher’s chance of surviving the drop. If we were to remain in the fight though, the general consensus was this: we had to beat Luton on Boxing Day.

Guess what? We lost.

And we lost in the most farcical circumstances. Leading 2-1 just at half-time, United managed to lose the game 3-2 despite limiting Luton to zero shots in the entity of the second half. Own goals from Jack Robinson and substitute Anis Slimane handed the points to Luton and struck a significant blow to the Blades’ hopes of staying up: 

United then unsurprisingly went on to lose to quadruple winners Manchester City to close out the year. Then we started 2024 with a 4-0 win at Gillingham in the FA Cup 3rd round. The Blades then went on to grab a point in their first league game of the year with a 2-2 draw at home to West Ham. Which was followed by a 5-2 hammering at home to Brighton in the FA Cup 4th round. And the final game of January was a 3-2 defeat away at Crystal Palace that left United well on course to be the first team in Premier League history to concede over 100 goals.

February began with a home game against Aston Villa. The Blades had managed to grab a point at Villa Park in December and whilst still riding high in the league, Villa’s form had taken a nosedive: cue hope. Half an hour in, the only hope left was keeping the score down to a single figure. Villa raced into a 4-0 lead by 30 minutes as the Blades’ sorry display was given the punishment it deserved. The second half saw us ‘only’ concede one goal as Villa won the game 5-0.

In a season of numerous lows, it could be argued that the Villa hammering was THE lowest moment of the season up to that point. Another battering on our own patch in front of the manager appointed to ensure we at least went down fighting; it was the final straw for most fans and the Lane was more than half empty by half time. Unfortunately, this would go on to be a regular occurrence.

But before that, joy! Our third (and ultimately final) win of the season away at Luton saw the Blades reach 13 points which was enough to see United avoid the dreaded “Worst Premier League team ever” tag:

The victory over Luton gave United fans a bit of hope there was still something to fight for this season. Whilst the club were almost certainly relegated, getting off the bottom of the table was a real possibility when Brighton came to Bramall Lane. Unfortunately, any chance of United continuing the momentum of the Luton victory was ended on 13 minutes when a horror challenge from on-loan defender Mason Holgate left the Blades having to play almost the entire game with 10 men. Brighton duly took advantage of the extra man and, quite incredibly, handed United their second consecutive 5-0 home defeat. Even famous retail chains were now making wisecracks at our players’ expense: 

The season really couldn’t end quickly enough now but United still had another 13 games to play, with the first of these being a 1-0 defeat away at Wolves before managing to avoid conceding five for the 4th home game running by conceding six in a 6-0 defeat to Arsenal. By this point United fans had nothing left to give:

After the Arsenal debacle, United went on a bit of a run (by the season standards), drawing 3 of their next 4 by taking points from Bournemouth, Fulham and Chelsea before losing at Anfield. Sadly, this was as good as it would get in the run-in as the Blades ended the season losing 7 consecutive games and ending the season with the lowest points tally in our entire history and conceding 104 goals to boot.

It was the way we deserved to go down in all honesty. The actions of the club since securing promotion deserved the punishment, and Blades fans were witnesses to the worst 12 months in the history of Sheffield United FC: