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Chris Wilder may be a very innovative strategist, but the Sheffield United manager is not a fan of unnecessary changes and knows that disruption has its downsides.
“I haven’t changed my cell phone number for about 30 years,” he jokes before explaining that despite two two-game Premier League losses, he remains resistant to altering a characteristic formation configured around boldly overlapping center halves or your broader attack strategy.
“I will not change our approach and Leeds will not change theirs,” says Wilder as he prepares to entertain Marcelo Bielsa’s team on Sunday lunchtime. “Both teams have good technical players and a lot of energy and we will both look for a victory. We haven’t changed our philosophy since we returned to the Premier League and Leeds won’t either. It will be very, very interesting tactically. “
It will also be the first time that two clubs separated by 41 miles have met in the Premier League in 26 years, since they drew 2-2 at Bramall Lane in March 1994.
In a normal year this would have been the loudest of the big occasions, with Bramall Lane packed to the girders and the Woolley Edge services on the M1 between Leeds and Sheffield packed with devout Bielsaites.
“Bramall Lane is like a ghost town,” says Wilder. “You don’t feel the vibe, but we have to find a way to adapt.” All clubs feel the pain of the absence of their supporters, but Sheffield United is arguably struggling with silence more than most.
Billy Sharp feels it keenly. “I’m heartbroken that there will be no fans on Sunday,” says Wilder’s 34-year-old former Leeds forward. “I’m not going to lie, the same thing doesn’t happen to you in a day. You do not understand the buzz when you drive in a field away from the bus and when you get hot; you don’t get the same adrenaline.
“The fans are the most important part of the game, it is not the same sport without them. The players are frustrated, we want them back. I see cafes all over Sheffield full of people and it frustrates me. With the measures we have now implemented, there is no better and safer place for them than a soccer field. “
Sharp, a close friend and golf partner of Leeds captain Liam Cooper who might as well end up scoring him, played with four coaches in his only season at Elland Road, but appreciates that Bielsa’s arrival changed everything.
“Sunday is a match between two great clubs from two great cities,” he says. “We don’t have a point on the board yet, so we will have to improve our game against them.”
Sheffield United fans fear the “second season syndrome” and worry about the tendency for teams that impress in the first year after promotion to succumb to the force of gravity the following year.
It’s still very early, but the Aston Villa losses, when the Blades played 10 men for 80 minutes after John Egan’s controversial red card, and the Wolves ensured that Wilder’s wife had to remind him that Wednesday was his 53rd birthday. “When you don’t have a point, the celebrations don’t come into play,” he says. “We need to improve on both boxes.”
Given that Leeds’ first two games – a loss at Liverpool and a win against Fulham – involved 4-3 scores, Bielsa knows Leeds need to improve their defensive game.
Although Patrick Bamford has confused skeptics by doing so well in front of goal, a somewhat astonished Bielsa was asked on Friday whether the forward deserved a call-up from England. The Leeds coach knows that his team cannot keep scoring at the same pace.
“We can’t maintain such efficiency, so we shouldn’t concede that many,” he says, before suggesting that he has found some kind of soul mate in Wilder. Although, in many ways, the two men are very different, both have steered clear of tactical groupthink and dare to be different.
“Sheffield United prepared in unusual ways, with unusual tactics, but they are very loyal to their style of play,” says Bielsa, who sent classy congratulatory text messages to Wilder when Sheffield United overtook Leeds for promotion in 2019 “The way Chris Wilder runs and sets up his team sparks a lot of interest in me to learn from him. He has a clear concept. He can instill his ideas in the players and make the way they play seem comfortable. He is a very good coach. “.
Given Wilder’s belief that Bielsa speaks infinitely better English than advertised, their post-match conversation promises to be the dream material of an Amazon soccer documentarian.
