Richard Sutcliffe: Let us hope the Steel City can avoid its first double relegation

IS Sheffield football in danger of sinking to a new low ebb?
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The question is one that is being asked increasingly, both inside and outside the Steel City, due to a truly miserable start to the season by both Wednesday and United.

One victory between the two clubs in 25 league and Cup fixtures is a damning statistic, not least because that solitary victory – by United against Notts County – came 11 long weeks ago on the first Friday of August.

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Such a shocking run of form means the Sheffield duo go into the weekend sitting in the relegation zones of their respective divisions.

It is a painful state of affairs for a city that not so long ago was hosting top-flight football and last season boasted the second and ninth highest average attendances in the Football League.

Even more galling is that United and Wednesday’s combined average crowd in 2012-13 was bettered by only Manchester United, Arsenal, Newcastle, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Of course, a decline in Yorkshire footballing fortunes has not been restricted to Sheffield in recent years. Leeds United, for instance, are into their 10th year outside the Premier League and showing few signs of getting back any time soon.

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For Sheffield, however, the fact that an unwanted piece of history is in danger of being made – in 110 previous League campaigns, United and Wednesday have not relegated in the same season – means the current situation is that bit more desperate.

Of the two, United’s predicament at the foot of the League One table seems the more serious.

Not only did the Blades begin the season among the favourites to win promotion, after reaching the play-offs in each of the last two years, but the arrival of Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as co-owner was supposed to be the missing piece of the jigsaw to take the club back up the divisions.

That, of course, may still happen in time. But if United are not careful then the hoped for push back towards the summit of English football will have to begin next August from the basement division.

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It is why they simply have to get this managerial appointment right. A new approach is needed, whereby the club hierarchy forget all thoughts of bringing in a ‘big’ name and go for someone intimately familiar with their current level.

Appointing David Weir, Bryan Robson and even Gary Speed, who for all his fantastic work when subsequently in charge of Wales struggled badly for results at the Lane, has smacked of a club fixated with the eye-catching rather than the practical.

Ditto ‘name’ signings such as Dave Kitson and Barry Robson last term.

Horses for courses is the best approach at this level, as Leeds fans will attest. Not only did the Elland Road board bring in Simon Grayson, promoted from the third tier with Blackpool 18 months earlier, when other bigger names were being bandied about in the wake of Gary McAllister’s departure. But in the season that ended with promotion, United’s main summer captures were a full-back from Northampton Town and Cheltenham Town’s first-choice goalkeeper.

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As for the Blades’ managerial search, Russell Slade ticks all the boxes, as does Karl Robinson. Sven Goran Eriksson most definitely does not.

Across the city at Hillsborough, the picture is not quite so bleak – even allowing for the Owls being the only club of 92 in the Football and Premier League without a win this season, even in the cups.

True, third bottom almost a quarter into the campaign is a worrying place to be.

But that elusive win has been within touching distance on several occasions, most notably at Brighton earlier this month when the hosts equalised in the final minute.

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Similar opportunities have been squandered at home, but with back-to-back trips to struggling Bolton and bottom-placed Barnsley before the end of the month, Wednesday have a great chance to kick-start their season.

If they can do that and United also get the right man in place quickly, maybe 2014 will not be an annus horribilis for Sheffield football after all.

Let us hope so, as the alternative is a first double relegation and the Steel City really hitting rock bottom.