West Bromwich Albion v Sheffield United: The eyes have it as a year of Chris Wilder pays dividends
Not that he needed persuading.
When the second year of Wilder's second (managerial) coming starts in earnest at West Bromwich Albion on Sunday the mood of the away fans will be far removed from 12 months ago.
They say you should never go back and if Wilder had looked logically at a team bottom of the Premier League with five points from 14 games and an owner he had fallen out with to end his last spell, lacking the wherewithal to fund a January counter-offensive, he would have run a mile.
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Hide AdBut the thought of making Blades supporters fall back in love with their club was irresistible.
Six months in, it was not going very well. Relegation was confirmed and whilst some young players – most notably Oliver Arblaster – had been integrated, the spineless capitulations which did for Paul Heckingbottom continued. The thought of taking on the Championship with an almighty hangover was daunting.
Now everything is different. Even after a points deduction for unpaid bills between Wilder's managerial spells, the Blades top the Championship, though they may well not do by Sunday's 3pm kick-off.
The academy has kept producing, shrewd Championship signings have been added, a new spirit forged and on Thursday it was announced potential buyers for the club had been given Football League approval, not that Wilder would talk about that. The deal is not done and the Blades have been burnt before.
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Most importantly, fans have started enjoying themselves again, not least the one in the manager's office.
"Since I really started supporting Sheffield United in 1977-78, like every Sheffield United supporter, it's been an absolute roller-coaster," says former player Wilder.
"We weren't in a very good place (last December) and there was a lot of work to be done in the summer.
"Initially it was to try and get through to the end of the season, get some respectable results and put a little bit of pride back into us. We were battered and bruised as a football club, ridiculed in the harsh realities of the Premier League.


"We had a couple of decent moments but not enough.
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Hide Ad"My remit personally and from the club was to get us back into a good place during the summer, whether it was recruitment, the rebuild, the connection back with the supporters.
"But it was tough. It was really tough.
"I'm grateful to Prince Abdullah (the chairman/owner) and the board for getting me back in.


"It wouldn't have been met universally with acceptance but I felt a little bit of unfinished business to get us back into a respectable place in the medium and long term and I think we're well on our way to doing that.
"It really was a punishing last four or five months (of last season) for everybody – the players as well.
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Hide Ad"I like to believe I know what good looks like when we're all at it and on the same page. That was one of the biggest things we had to get back to.
"We're seeing in abundance there's still a hell of a long way to go. There's no guarantees, no shoo-ins, nothing won in early December but we're in a decent place."
Parachute payments always help relegated sides, but the drag of a morale-sapping relegation does not. Just look at Luton Town, 19th in the Championship after a far more respectable demotion.
"I don't think anybody could have foreseen we would be top of the division at this stage of the season," insists Wilder.
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Hide Ad"People have this lazy opinion of we're set to go back up, we've lost one or two players but really the group is a Premier League team that's had a poor season and is ready to go back in.
"The team wasn't a Premier League team last season, it wasn't. It got brutally exposed. It was miles off it, absolutely miles off it.
"It was a complete rebuild with the amount of players out of contract, the amount of players that went back to their parent clubs, the movement of the players I had to oversee and players coming in.
"And I think one of the biggest things is the changing of the style and how we play."
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Hide AdBut the results – so far at least – have been worth all the effort.
"I've really enjoyed it, I know the coaches have really enjoyed it," smiles Wilder. "Al (Knill, his assistant)'s really enjoyed it.
"It's reminiscent of that feeling in 2018-19 when we went up. This doesn't go hand in hand, there's no guarantees because there's a long way to go, a lot of football to be played, but it has got that feel from every aspect, from me walking down the road on a Tuesday afternoon walking the dog and speaking to people. I can see people have got the twinkle back in their eyes and the love of the football club back.
"The feel of winning derby games, the feel of last-minute winners at Bristol City, the feel of Tom Davies coming off the bench and scoring in a top-of-the-table game... There's been a bit of pain in there, like the Middlesbrough and the Leeds game.
"But I would say we're in a good place."
That felt such a long way off this time last year.
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