Leeds United’s irritation, Sheffield Wednesday’s relief, and Barnsley’s hope - winners and losers of coronavirus shutdown

Football’s shutdown due to the coronavirus has hit the sport hard, but it’s not all bad as Stuart Rayner discovers as he analyses the winners and losers.
Winners and Losers - 
Leeds Kalvin Phillips.  (Picture: Tony Johnson)Winners and Losers - 
Leeds Kalvin Phillips.  (Picture: Tony Johnson)
Winners and Losers - Leeds Kalvin Phillips. (Picture: Tony Johnson)

Until April 30 at the very earliest, there will be no professional football played in England.

Necessary though it is to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, no football-lover will be particularly delighted at the suspension of the sport, but in certain cases it will provide some relief, while frustrating others who were starting to hit their stride.

Here, we look at some of the winners and losers.

Winner:  Barnsley's Cauley Woodrow scores a penalty (Picture: Dean Atkins|)Winner:  Barnsley's Cauley Woodrow scores a penalty (Picture: Dean Atkins|)
Winner: Barnsley's Cauley Woodrow scores a penalty (Picture: Dean Atkins|)

Winners

Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday

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The two Yorkshire clubs have the worst records of any Championship sides in 2020, and the break offers a much-needed chance to regroup for the end-of-season run-in – whenever that ends up being.

The day before the Football League postponed all matches both teams were preparing to kick off crucial three-game weeks with home fixtures which could have had a huge bearing on the immediate futures of their managers. Owls manager Garry Monk went into it on the back of a 5-0 thumping at Brentford, Hull coach Grant McCann after a 5-1 hammering at relegation rivals Stoke City.

Owls boss Garry Monk was relieved for the breakOwls boss Garry Monk was relieved for the break
Owls boss Garry Monk was relieved for the break

This pause should give both sets of players the chance to freshen up mentally and get back to relishing their jobs again. If anything can put the fantastic life of a footballer into perspective, this is it.

Injured players

Hull have more than their fair share of injuries too, but this one applies across the board, where players who thought their seasons might be over can suddenly see a light at the end of the tunnel.

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The resumption ought to see squads across the country much fresher and less jaded than they were three-quarters of the way through the long slog of an English season.

The flip-side is that they will not have had the same intensity of training they are used to, and may need to play more games in a short space of time than they are primed for, so some sort of “mini-pre-season” will probably be needed to guard against further injuries.

Sander Berge

Sheffield United’s record £22m signing Sander Berge has not set the world alight since joining from Genk in January, but it was unrealistic to expect he would. The odd mid-season signing will always hit the ground running, but the vast majority do not.

English football is unusually frenetic, and difficult to adjust to when you have played your entire career elsewhere. This break will do little to help that, but there is at least more space to get your head around everything.

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Berge’s terrace anthem is based on Oasis’s “She’s Electric”, where the key lyric is “I need more time.”

He, and January recruits across the country, are certainly getting that.

Forgotten heroes

The hunger for football has led to all manner of games being re-run, re-reported, and in some cases, blogged for the first time.

Middlesbrough were one of the first clubs to show old matches “as live” via YouTube and social media, and others quickly followed.

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For younger fans, this will mean learning about a raft of players they had never previously heard of – “Right, home-schooling lesson one, the 1997-98 season, then your homework is watching the 2016 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final in full.”

For older supporters, it should bring back a few happy memories.

Sadly, for most of our clubs, their best days have been in the past. The next few weeks might bring a greater appreciation of some of the key contributors – if only those from the television era.

Out-of-contract players

Are they winners or losers?

They will be deprived of a chance to impress in the coming weeks, but if the leagues resume, their moment in the shop window might merely be delayed, so it is probably best if we err on the positive in times like this.

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With potentially nine matches squeezed into a short time-frame, those not in the manager’s thinking at the moment might be pressed into action, regardless of contractual situations.

A season going into extra-time should also mean a few pay cheques for those due to become employed at the end of June. For those lower down the scale, it could be important.

Losers

Leeds United

After a mid-season stutter, the Whites had really found their feet again, winning five consecutive matches without conceding a goal.

As the team top of the Championship, they have more to lose than most from their rhythm being disrupted. Sheffield United could do without it too. Not many other Yorkshire clubs could claim to have been on a roll but individuals such as John Lundstram (Sheffield United), Jack Harrison (Leeds), Emile Smith Rowe (Huddersfield Town), Cauley Woodrow (Barnsley) and Freddie Ladapo (Rotherham United) were in purple patches they would have loved to have kept going.

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Leeds and Sheffield United are where they are on merit, and as long as they train as well as they can under the current restrictions, they are just as capable of doing in the last chunk of the season what they have up to now.

Non-league football

The lower down the pyramid you go, the more worrying these times are.

Many non-league clubs will go out of business without financial help, so reliant are they on gate income and bar takings. Even before the pandemic, we saw lower-league clubs sailing alarmingly close to the wind.

Plenty of clubs have stepped up to the plate via their foundations to help foodbanks, charities and the vulnerable – work they do all year round, but have increased. We can only hope they are as charitable to clubs in peril.

Casual workers and suppliers

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Barnet serving 60 members of staff notice of redundancy in week one of this crisis was an unwelcome reminder that when the proverbial hits the fan in football, those behind the scenes usually suffer most.

For many casual workers, no matchday means no payday.

Manchester United have been quick to say they will keep paying casual staff, but not many have their resources.

When a club hits financial trouble, the small business who supply them with pies and the like suffer too.

Dean Henderson and Kalvin Phillips

England caps do not come around very often, and it looked like Sheffield United’s on-loan goalkeeper Henderson and Leeds midfielder Phillips would have won their first this week, only for Wembley friendlies against Italy and Denmark to be suspended.

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Both are young and good enough that their chances of going to the next European Championships have not ended. The 12-month delay might help Phillips if he can play a first Premier League season with Leeds in 2020-21 but he would not be the first player to believe another chance would come his way, only for Lady Luck to turn on him.

Whether Henderson can have a good follow-up top-flight season will depend to a large extent on Manchester United. If the Red Devils recall him from his loan, it will only serve his immediate international ambitions well if he plays regularly. As it was, it felt like the momentum was moving his way not only because of his form, but Jordan Pickford’s. England’s No 1 now has chance to recover confidence and composure.

The fans

For may of us, the thought of an afternoon at the football, or even on the sofa watching it, is one of the joys we most look forward to and there are not many other distractions to fill the void at the moment. The players will be missing it just as much, and with most forced to train alone, the lack of dressing-room interaction too.

Hopefully, for the sake of all our sanity, the lay-off is not as long as we fear.

There is only so much Belarusian football you can watch.