Wilder is placing accent on decent Sheffield United results

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder is relishing the scrap after a tough baptism to life in the Championship.
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder wants his players to complement good performances with good results (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage).Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder wants his players to complement good performances with good results (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage).
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder wants his players to complement good performances with good results (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage).

After an opening-day win over Brentford, the newly-promoted Blades have suffered back-to-back defeats at Middlesbrough and Cardiff City.

It has left United – who romped to the League One title last season – licking their wounds after experiencing the rare taste of defeat.

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But Wilder has not battled his way up the footballing pyramid, through outposts like Halifax and Northampton, without knowing how to create a fighting spirit in a squad.

For no matter how many plaudits United earned for their football last term, it was built on a platform of hard graft and battling displays, commodities in Wilder’s squad as dependable as the steel from his hometown city.

“I quite enjoy, in a perverse sort of way, periods like this,” said Wilder, ahead of tomorrow’s South Yorkshire derby with Barnsley. “When there is a little doubt, I, as a person, don’t go into my shell. I am a little bit more perkier than usual.

“It’s quite easy to manage when you are winning; the key is when things have gone against you, what do you do.

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“I am looking forward to Saturday, and I am sure the players are.

“People can say we lost to Middlesbrough and Cardiff, top of the division, established clubs, but we are not happy – and I don’t want us to be happy.”

Despite successive away defeats, Wilder was impressed with their performances at Boro and Cardiff.

He sees tomorrow’s lunchtime kick-off as the ideal match in which to return to winning ways.

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He said: “Barnsley is an important game; all the home games are important.

“Punters are not daft. If we are not putting the effort and enthusiasm in and not winning games, they won’t back us like they have done.

“I don’t take my lead from them, but you do look at the reaction from the crowd afterwards.

“We are appreciative of their support and I think they see we haven given it a good go.

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“But I don’t want to just give it a good go, I want to get something from the games.

“The players are feeling a little bit down; it’s my job to pick them up.”

So has the Championship caught Wilder by surprise?

“Not really,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“I have loved the atmosphere, at Middlesbrough and Cardiff, and the first game of the season here.

“This is where we want to be. It’s no good moaning about it, we are at a fantastic level of competition and the buzz is there.

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“The Championship is a minimum of where this club should be at, and a minimum of where I want to be – and believe I should be.

“It took time to get here; now we are at this level and we want to compete. We are up against it, everybody knows that, against some powerful big clubs that have a lot of advantages over us.

“But I have a lot of fight inside, and the players have. You have to if you are involved in this football club.

“We are really enjoying it. I don’t enjoy hearing managers saying, ‘we’ll be good, decent, mid-table, there’s no problems here…’

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“I don’t like that, because I want to marry up decent performances with decent results. That’s what we are here for.

“The players now have to show the qualities that turn a tight game into a draw/win. We have to produce that.”

Wilder insists United will not be selling any of his first-team players before the transfer deadline.

But striker James Hanson and defender John Brayford could be allowed to leave the Lane, as Wilder looks to “wheel and deal” to bring in new faces.

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“We have tried to do business as quick as we wanted to,” Wilder said. “There is no change in that. Of course the squad needs strengthening. There has been interest in a couple of our players, as there always is.

“When team-sheets came out at Middlesbrough and Cardiff, (with) players not involved, there has been an obvious question asked of us regarding players.

“James (Hanson) is still here, but he is injured at the moment.

“I am loyal to the players who got us into the division, but we are always looking. Everybody recognises I have to wheel and deal in certain situations.

It’s a learning process for me too.”

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While former Bradford City forward Hanson has been linked with a move to Scunthorpe United, full-back Brayford is wanted by former boss Nigel Clough at Burton Albion.

“John is still here, so I think the ball is with Burton,” said Wilder. “I know there has been dialogue between both clubs.

“Until John is not here, he is in the group, training, and played last week against Walsall.”

Defender Richard Stearman – a summer signing from Fulham – has been ruled out for between two and four weeks, due to a hamstring injury.