The gamble: making sense of the Chris Wilder sacking

Ben Meakin weighs up the risks, rewards, and reasoning behind a bold decision by new ownership—and why he's ready to roll the dice on a new era at Bramall Lane.

Ben Meakin - BladesPod/Women of Steel

Four years ago I was devastated when Chris Wilder left Sheffield United, but in 2025 the news of a second break-up hits a little differently. I write this in the knowledge that I may well be in a minority view, but here goes: I think United’s owners are taking a gamble, but it’s one I’m happy to go along with.

I am, admittedly, quite bad at gambling. But hear me out.

First, I’m actually encouraged about what the move says about our new owners. It suggests that they are looking beyond the 92 points that Wilder’s side won last season, which to me seems like a smart analysis. United and Burnley were the two biggest over-performers last season in terms of expected points. Burnley did that by having a goalkeeper enjoying a once-in-a-generation season; we did it through a bit of luck in close games and often just having better individuals than most teams.

We rarely controlled games and typically stopped attacking around the 70-minute mark. And unlike Burnley and Leeds, we regressed in the second half of the season, scoring fewer goals, taking fewer points, and dropping from top of the league to 10 points adrift. We finished 2024/25 with the 6th-highest expected goals (lower than Wednesday!) – performance-wise I think the campaign was about par, possibly worse. It’s certainly not a comparable situation with Daniel Farke at Leeds, who by plenty of metrics were the second-best side in the Championship the previous season and then arguably strengthened over the summer to storm to 100 points.

Making a switch at manager acknowledges that we lived out something close to the best-case scenario last season in terms of points vs performances, and that that was unlikely to be repeatable. We scored 63 goals – just one more than we did in 2017/18, when we finished 10th. We also lost six out of seven games against the three promoted sides (and were kinda outplayed in the one that we did win, a weird 10v10 home game with Sunderland).

The seventh of those match-ups, the playoff final, served as a microcosm of the season: an excellent start that fell apart when we got to the crunch. If you look at a league table that only considers the final 15 minutes (plus added time), United scored eight goals in 46 games and picked up the 18th-most points. Often we were sitting on leads – successfully, in the main – but so were Leeds and Burnley, who were 1st and 2nd in points earned in the final 15 minutes. Those good teams found a way to pile it on; we never did and ended with a -3 GD in that timespan.

Whether we rolled with Wilder for another season or brought in a new boss, it’s extremely unlikely that we get that many points again next year (it’s our highest-ever total at this level). You can certainly convince me that it becomes even less likely with a new manager coming in – but I think it also raises the ceiling on what we could be next season, as well as what we could be in two, three or four years, and that’s quite an exciting prospect.

We might even need to chew through a manager or two to get to that place, although the new guy will really have to mess things up to miss the playoffs with the squad he’ll inherit, even with some sales factored in. But either way I’m ready to see, because eventually – very soon, in fact – we were going to have to move on from having a one-man figurehead with his fingerprints on every aspect of the club.

I’ve fretted about this plenty of times this season and, full disclosure, it’s one of the reasons I was reticent about Wilder returning as manager in 2023: an unwillingness or inability to adapt or bring in outside voices. So many times this season we looked poorly-coached in contrast to the opposition – so could we bring in newer, better coaches? We spent big in January and got worse – so could we change how we do business in terms of recruitment? If the answer to either is no – which I suspect it was – then the owners’ decision to part ways makes a lot more sense.

As I write, our chief scout is someone Wilder knows and a former United player (Jamie Hoyland) and our head of recruitment is someone who Wilder has worked with repeatedly (Mike Allen). The same applies for our assistant manager (Alan Knill) and first-team coaches (Matt Prestridge and Jack Lester). I’m sure all of these people are good at their jobs, although Hoyland apart – who has a solid reputation from his time at Everton – I don’t know if any of those get hired by a top Championship team in those roles, unless Wilder’s the one hiring them. The concept of bringing in fresh ideas off the field, of moving away from an insular ethos towards staff and players – and perhaps delegating a bit more power to those roles than the current structure – is appealing.

I find the notion that only someone who “gets the club” can manage us, or scout for us, or analyse data for us, or coach us, to be somewhat bizarre. No other professional club in England functions like this as far as I’m aware. Sheffield United FC may be special to us, the fans, but we’re not “special” in and of itself. Good coaches don’t need to have attended the defeat to Port Vale under Adrian Heath in order to be good coaches.

We will lose something in bidding farewell to Wilder, as Sam noted in his piece for the Pinch earlier this week. He brought enormous value last summer in overseeing massive player turnover and still piecing together the 3rd-best squad in the Championship. He delivered a derby double (and will bow out unbeaten in his six Sheffield derbies, for which I’m eternally grateful), and was the emotional figurehead of the club through the tragic loss of George Baldock in October. All of which are enormously to his credit, and – particularly in the case of Baldock’s passing – I don’t know if there’s a single other manager out there who could have done the job he did.

But in terms of utilising his squad… I think there’s a lot of valid questions. The Championship’s best player Gustavo Hamer spent the whole season marooned on the left, frequently leaving him marginalised and the team unbalanced. Ben Brereton-Diaz was shoehorned into a right-wing role that he himself confessed had rarely played before (and boy did it show), 12 months after an impressive Premier League stint on the left under the same manager. Rhian Brewster – Rhian Brewster! – started a bunch of games in midfield. We had half a season of Jack Robinson as part of a back four, and fluffed the opportunity to upgrade on him in January.

Callum O’Hare was played off the striker for months and, just when he seemed to have mastered it, was dropped. There was no place for our third-highest scorer, Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, on the bench for the biggest game of the season. Andre Brooks spent the winter and spring with his feet up before ably demonstrating what we’d been missing right at the death. We also signed two specialist right-backs – both on loan from PL clubs – and ended up with a midfielder playing there (and somewhat damningly, he was better at it than the other two).

Wilder’s points total is undoubtedly impressive, but the unknown (and the gamble the owners are taking) is whether plenty of other managers at this level could have delivered a similar top-six finish – at least – with the players we had this season. I don’t think Wilder’s work should be dismissed – undoubtedly plenty of managers can subtract value from their side – but I don’t think he added much either once the season kicked off.

January is where it probably unravelled in the minds of the owners, when Wilder was given four Premier League loans plus an expensive striker, and we got worse. Only one addition – Hamza Choudhury – was a success, and that was largely while playing in a different position to the one he was signed for. The £10m fee for Tom Cannon came with more red flags than an all-timer post on the AITA subreddit and it’s infuriating to think how that money could have been used elsewhere on other, more impactful players.

I can’t imagine that the team racking up misconduct fine after misconduct fine, including Wilder himself becoming personally embroiled after a defeat to Plymouth, will have escaped the owners’ attention either.

It’s also worth remembering that Wilder was only here for a second spell at all because Prince Abdullah wanted to sell the club, had checked out of day-to-day running, and so put minimal effort into replacing Paul Heckingbottom. Under no circumstances was Wilder being considered for a Premier League job elsewhere during that time. It’s not a great shock to me that new owners, like many in football, not only want their own man but think that they can improve on the incumbent.

I’ll be forever grateful for Wilder giving me the best times I’ve ever experienced as a United fan – this second spell doesn’t taint that. But football moves on: the club existed before him, it will continue to exist after. I don’t see that this sacking should necessarily be framed as Wilder being “punished” for failing; it feels more like an opportunity to part ways, with a belief that we can become better. It’s a move that looks to progress from a manager who is a club legend, has had a very successful career, but ultimately after 1,000 games in various dugouts is probably not going to evolve beyond who he is right now – for better or worse.

I’m willing to see how the gamble plays out. Hand me a season-ticket’s worth of casino chips, and deal me in.