Wilson is steeling himself for Blades challenge

For those Blades who loathe his former club Sheffield Wednesday, it felt like salt had been rubbed into an open wound.

A Premier League club four years ago, the Blades are returning to the third tier of English football for the first time in 22 years.

Wilson became the first manager in Steel City history to cross Sheffield’s footballing divide and with that has come an extra set of pressures.

It may have been 2000 when he last worked at Hillsborough but the rival fans have long memories.

Patience will be in short supply if results start badly and the 51-year-old also has to contend with massive reductions to the club’s wage bill.

Over the last few months, Wilson has been going out of his way to meet Blades supporters and demonstrate his commitment to the club.

His initial arrival sparked a car-park protest but he has worked hard to try to win over his doubters.

Asked if he is succeeding, Wilson quipped: “Well, I haven’t had my nose broken yet – so that’s a start.”

Like Alex McLeish, who quit Birmingham City to join neighbours Aston Villa this summer, Wilson will be walking a minefield where the only way to survive is to keep winning games.

“You just have to get through it. And I will always deal honestly with anything that is put in front of me,” he said.

“We decided that it would be a good idea to attend a few supporters meetings in pubs and talk to them,” he explained. “Not to try to justify my own position – just to get them to understand.

“If that’s not good enough for some people, it’s not good enough – but it won’t stop me doing the job.”

Wilson says his target this season is automatic promotion but that will need to be achieved with a younger and dramatically altered side from the one that came down last season.

The Blades have sold big earners including Darius Henderson and Mark Yeates while others, including striker Ched Evans, are expected to depart before the end of August.

Uncertainty, inevitably, has shrouded planning for the new season. Who would be staying, who would be leaving? Wilson could never quite be sure what lay around the next corner.

“Relegation has impinged on so many areas of this club and the biggest one is the budget,” he said. “The squad is not yet settled and that has made the task different but no one in this football club wants second best.

“My expectations are as high as those of the fans. I want promotion and we expect to be there,” he stressed. “I don’t see that as punching above our weight. If this was a smaller club, getting 2,000 people every week, it might be unrealistic – but I don’t think it is unrealistic to expect this club to be challenging this season.

“When I walk into the stadium every day I think ‘where should this club really be?’. Everyone has the same opinion – it should be in the Premiership. However, it is not and we have got to do a lot of hard work to get it back there.”

Although relegation cast a black cloud over Bramall Lane last season, the club’s success in the FA Youth Cup provided hope for a better future. The Blades youngsters reached the final of the competition for the first time (losing to Manchester United) but this also intensified the weight of expectation on their shoulders.

Teenagers Jordan Slew and Harry Maguire finished last season as first-team regulars, and will be prominent again, but Wilson is wary of relying too heavily on youth.

“There are some very good young players at this club but are they ready for the first team and 46 games? No,” he said pointedly. “They will train with the first team in order to get to the standards required and they will be given the opportunity to contribute as we go along. But to ask a boy to play 46 games at this level. No. Even senior pros, at some stage, struggle to do that.

“There are three or four who we think can get into the team but it won’t be seven, eight, nine, or 10,” he stressed. “It won’t be the whole of the youth team. That is not realistic. We have to make sure we blood them at the right time and look after them.”

Of the task ahead, Wilson said: “We will need togetherness and belief. That has to be paramount along with respect for each other and understanding about what we want to do. If we get that group solid and strong – and we have that respect for each other – we have got a chance because there is ability in the club and that will give us a chance to blossom.”

The return of the Steel City derbies will be one of the highlights of the season. However, it will also be the first time in 30 years the Blades and Owls have locked horns in the third tier of English football.

For Wilson, who spent the best days of his playing career with the Owls, the fixtures will be particularly poignant.

So intense is the rivalry between the two clubs, that some supporters view finishing above the other as more important than winning promotion.

Wilson, however, begs to differ.

“I am not bothered where Sheffield Wednesday finish this season,” he said. “But if they are second and we are top, I will settle for that now.”

The first meeting between the clubs is a noon kick-off at Bramall Lane on Sunday, October 16.

The return fixture at Hillsborough is on Sunday, February 26, kicking off at 1pm.