Where do we go from here?

Putting a flower in the barrel of a relegation.

Sam Parry

In the case of Sheffield United, the table speaks the truth. We have the fewest points, we have conceded the most goals, and we have the worst expected goals tally. There’s no false position here.

Calls for the manager’s head are unsurprising. When a team plays as poorly as we have, then a proportion of the fan base is always likely to round on the man in charge. I understand it, even if I don’t totally agree. There is nothing evil or insidious behind the thinking that Heckingbottom should go; fans simply want the club to be better. We all share that view.

However, context is critical. Paul Heckingbottom was only able to field a team replete with key new signings in our 2-2 with Everton. Before that, the hierarchy and not the manager had seen fit to write off the opening few games. Since then, only that draw with Everton and games against West Ham and Fulham have been remotely winnable. As I’ve written elsewhere, the non-contests in the Premier League are now much more extensive. We can’t expect anything from games against the top eight and yet, of course, we are football fans and so we do.

That gap between expectation and reality is problematic. The brutality of a Premier League season for a team whose ceiling is likely relegation makes decision-making at boardroom level more erratic. It becomes so easy to believe that a new manager could turn the tide of bad results when in all probability they can’t. Our last campaign in the top flight tells us that much. But there’s another more comparable case in recent history.

Consider the cautionary tale of Norwich City

On 6 November 2021, Norwich City won their first game of the season away at Brentford. After 11 games they had 5 points to their name, were clearly the poorest team in the division, and lacked all but a glimmer of hope staying there (remind you of anyone?). Later that day, they sacked Daniel Farke and replaced him with Dean Smith.

Over the next 27 games, Smith’s managerial reign brought a further 17 points. The effort was nowhere near enough to keep Norwich in the top flight, and nor did his style of play ingratiate him to the fans. In short, his appointment achieved no better result than Farke could have achieved.

That outcome tallies up with a study by Sheffield Hallam University who examined 15 years of sackings and concluded that “… there is little statistical evidence that sacking a manager has any real effect.” In fact, the average improvement in league position for a bottom-half team in the Premier League after sacking a manager was one place, which is no great boon if you’re in 20th.

And so, if like Norwich you sack a manager with a track record of promotions from the Championship, you stand to gain little whilst also losing the experience and skills that got you there in the first place.

Now, I don’t know if sacking Farke was the right decision for Norwich. But I think it’s fair to say hiring Dean Smith was the wrong one. The following season, the Canaries sacked Smith on 27 December 2022, appointed David Wagner and wound up in 13th place. Today, Norwich sit behind Daniel Farke’s Leeds in the Championship.

Where do we go from here?

The canaries in the Bramall Lane coalmine are feeling the ill effects of proliferating futility. Whether the solution to that problem is sacking the gaffer or changing the way we play is up for debate. The truth is, none of us can ever know the outcome of an action that doesn’t come to pass.

If Heckinbottom stays and we are relegated, many fans will argue his sacking would’ve been sensible. If Heckingbottom goes soon and we are relegated, many fans will argue his sacking was futile. And in all probability, every option is futile — or is it? It depends on your definition of futility.

Sheffield United Football Club does not begin or end with top-flight status. Relegation is not a worry for me. Recall that Prince Abdullah wants to sell the club; that offers have been accepted from a convicted fraudster (Mauriss) and a bloke who settled out of court for signing dud cheques (Dozy); that Heckingbottom signed only one permanent player in our promotion campaign; that he integrated players like Ndiaye and Berge into a successful team where others did not; that he carried out this work against a backdrop of unpaid bills and undersoil heating we couldn’t afford to switch on.

Is relegation the big risk? Or is it the future of our football club?

Think what you will of his performance in the top flight, but remember that our club sits at a precarious tipping point, and then ask yourself the question about which manager is the best custodian amidst the chaos. You can make the argument that Paul Heckingbottom is not that person; I respectfully disagree but I do understand it.

However, I would sooner make the argument that the long-term interests of the club are better served by entrusting the next six months to Paul Heckinbottom rather than a new or familiar face — for me, he’s earned that.

That brings me to the Wilder question lurking about the place. I can understand the nostalgia but not the logic. For the club to return to a manager who left us in an equally invidious position seems bizarre. For Wilder, who purportedly left because he disagreed with the decision-making of the club’s hierarchy, it would seem doubly bizarre to return to the same hierarchy now. The very notion smacks of lazy recruitment and the divisiveness of such an appointment would only unravel as escalating bickering amongst fans. None of that is to say I don’t rate Wilder; I absolutely do. But rating Wilder is not a reason to sack Paul Heckingbottom, far from it.

The only reason for sacking Heckingbottom is poor run form. And what I struggle with is the idea that football clubs should sack managers based on a handful of games despite evidence of longer-term success. What I struggle with even more is the idea that a new manager could meaningfully alter the fate of this team in the Premier League — they couldn’t.

Where we go from here is almost certainly down to the Championship. If as fans we accept that fate, then the question to ask is with whom do we go down? We all have our opinions. But as a thought experiment, let’s imagine we don’t retain the services of Paul Heckingbottom.

A new direction, but not now!

I wonder if many reading this believe we are capable of staying up. I imagine most agree that it’s very, very unlikely.

So let’s imagine we are going down no matter what, and that Heckingbottom will leave no matter what, and that a new manager has to arrive in the building at some point between now and the end of the season.

Right. Think about that. Think about timings. And think about impact.

Why on earth would you bring in a new manager at this juncture? Why on earth would you allow the shadow of gloom to build up around a new protagonist? Why on earth would you risk having to sack a second manager in a season because, like his predecessor, they too can’t work miracles?

It is for that reason, on top of the others I have stated, that it makes no sense to sack anyone now. If we are to appoint a new manager, let it be with four games to go when their impact cannot be too harshly judged; when they can afford experimentation and can gather up a sense of excitement about a promotion tilt to come.

In doing that, the club would not only afford Paul Heckinbottom a fair and reasonable amount of time to attempt the near impossible but also give themselves the space to think carefully about succession planning. In my head, that’s the utterly logical thing to do. If Sheffield United are to move in a new direction, it’s absolutely critical we do not act out of panic.

And as fans, if Sheffield United are to be relegated, then let’s continue with the level-headed support we see in the ground rather than the crowing antagonism that some on social media seem to revel within.

“We’ll be here next week”

In the 0-8 thrashing to Newcastle, the ground wasn’t full of anger. Against West Ham, the fans didn’t boo. Against Fulham, we chanted Heckingbottom’s name.

It is very apparent to me that the people who show up week in and week out are, irrespective of their views on the manager, prepared to support the team with equal and opposite ferocity to those crass ornaments on Twitter whose opinions change like the weather. God knows if they actually turned up we’d need an umbrella for their spittle. Thankfully, they don’t.

And what cheers me up in all of this is the point that Sheffield United - as a club and as fans - isn’t defined by Premier League status.

At the end of the Fulham game, as I walked down the gangway, a man turned to (presumably) his daughter and said:

“We’ll be back again though, won’t we?”

I assume he meant that he’ll be back for another away trip, but he might’ve meant that an all-but-relegated Blades will return to the top flight and to Craven Cottage once more. Whichever his meaning, both things are true. Win, lose or draw, what happens next is this:

“We’re Sheffield United, we’ll be here next week.”