Wilder, Wednesday, and the culture of winning

Forget the maths, forget the philosophy, Chris Wilder has us right where he wants us.

Sam Parry

“Stick your data where you want to stick your data…”

After securing a derby double, Chris Wilder’s headline-grabbing riposte to Danny Röhl was personal. The tension behind it, however, has been brewing for much longer. Wilder was speaking to and beyond his opposite number.

There has been much sneering and no little scepticism about Wilder’s Sheffield United and Wilder himself. You see it on social media. You hear it on Sky. It is a theme that has followed our 57-year-old boss like a shadow, and derby day distilled it into the perfect clichéd contrast.

You know the story. The seasoned veteran against the bright young thing. The so-called dinosaur showing up with cash at Jurassic Park’s cashless gift shop. Old dog? Not quite. More the Collie that knows every inch of the course, skipping the showy tricks and running straight for the finish line.

The win was consequential—not just for bragging rights, not just for a title race that Blades would be leading were it not for a two-point deduction, but for Wilder’s own legacy. When Rob Staton shoved a microphone under the manager’s chin, what followed was a potted history of how Sheffield United have turned the tables on our neighbours. Beneath it all, however, was a robust defence of that legacy and, most relevantly, an open question about this season: why don’t Sheffield United get the credit we deserve? Why are we written off more easily than others?

“It’s amazing, today, how nobody talked about us going top, and we’d be going even further ahead with the two points added on.” — Chris Wilder

Through a season of unmitigated success, Sheffield United have been underappreciated and overlooked, despite securing more points and more wins than any other club after 38 Championship games.

Why? Because we’re not necessarily a dominant force in matches. Because we don’t have an easily identifiable style of play. And, perhaps, because of who our manager is, what he looks like, what he says and how he conducts himself.

Obviously, specific comments from his counterpart irked Wilder. Amongst other things, Röhl claimed Sheffield United had only one touch in the opposition box in the second half when in reality, it was four. These were just the latest in a long line of dismissive utterances by so many of our vanquished opponents and endless TV pundits. But the mistake wasn’t just in the numbers—it was in the mindset. Because in football today, data has a funny way of convincing us that overperformance isn’t to be celebrated when surely it should be a sign of achievement.

We’re heading for the maths textbook here, but fear not, we’ll return to the gut feel of this Blades side in a moment. Because it’s interesting how the stats don’t lie. Not exactly, anyway. They build a picture of a Sheffield United side that, on paper, shouldn’t be as high as we are. Few numbers expect us to be in second place.

• 3rd — Expected goals against

• 4th — Expected goal difference

• 6th — Expected position

• 6th — Expected goals-per-shot

• 8th — Expected goals

I love this information. It keeps me humble. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. Our performances all season have never felt glittering, but solid; never destructive, but pragmatic. And whilst there are plenty of positive facts within the sea of numbers, it’s hard for data to account for pragmatism.

That’s part of why Sheffield United are so difficult to pin down. Unlike some teams with a clearly defined tactical identity, we adjust, we adapt, we do what needs to be done. Some see that as a weakness, a lack of footballing philosophy. Maybe it is. I’ve certainly written, said and thought as much at times. But pragmatism suffused with an unswerving focus on the outcome is working.

Chris Wilder put it best after beating Wednesday when he described the Three Ways To Win A Football Match: “Over, through and round.” That is to say:
(a) Beating a press by going over it.
(b) Playing through the lines when the opportunity arises.
(c) Going around the sides of teams when they are compact.

It’s not new. It’s not revolutionary. It’s not sexy. But it’s something that has always defined Chris Wilder’s approach. The overlapping centre-backs in a 3-5-2? That wasn’t a gimmick or an ideology—it was simply a way to get round the opposition

Never old school. Never new school. We are about winning. Everything in the service of winning. Everything on the outcome. Today, that is a discordant track amongst the samey bubble-gum pop of process-driven managers. And yes, it is a potent concoction when it works, but as we saw last season, it becomes somewhat hollow when facing teams and individuals of far greater capability. Still, Wilder’s outcome-driven approach should get more credit than it does.

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The Culture of Winning

The window moves and the world moves with it. There is a diminishing constituency of owners willing to hire the brash machismo of the in-it-to-win-it Wilder-type. It’s not fashionable. But, as Chris Wilder rightfully pointed out, the history of the two biggest Sheffield clubs has swung back and forth down the decades. Football, like everything else, is cyclical.

There’s been a trend in the Championship towards managers building reputations on style before getting a bigger job. Russell Martin, Graham Potter, and even Steve Cooper—coaches praised for patterns of play and possession statistics. But for all the plaudits, neither has won anything like what Wilder has in English football.

That isn’t to say tactics don’t matter. They do. But the intangibles in football also matter, even if they are impossible to understand with any mathematical certainty. That’s why Sheffield United are here. Chris Wilder has us right where he wants us. Underappreciated. Overlooked. On top (-2).