71
Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 7, 201971
U UP IF YOU LET IT
Sheffield United want their teams to play with freedom
1,700
POTTER’S Swansea
completed 20,757
passes in the
Championship last
season, 1,700 more
than any other side.131
LEAGUE
games
won by
Chris Wilder since
he took over at
Northampton in
February 2014, the
most of any manager
in English league
football since then.CHRIS WILDER
INTERVIEW
T
here is an early
loosener during half an
hour with Chris Wilder
— Sheffield United
manager, boyhood fan,
former ballboy and owner of a
club crest tattoo.
Given his deep-rooted ties with the
club, does he feel a sense of responsi-
bility to correct the injustice of 2007,
when, notoriously, the Blades
suffered relegation at the hands of
West ham, Carlos Tevez and third-
party ownership? After all, recent
history might have been so different.
‘I cringe a bit when people bring it
up or want to talk about it,’ he says.
‘I want people to talk about this
team, not injustices of the past.
Obviously it has been a traumatic 12
years since relegation.
‘We are going to enjoy this now.
When the door opens you have to
step through it. Think of the experi-
ence our fans, especially the young
ones, are going to have seeing the
likes of Liverpool rock up here.
What an opportunity to see these
wonderful players at Bramall Lane.
A generation lost out on that.’
Asked and answered. But there is
some self-reflection before his
top-flight managerial debut at
Bournemouth on Saturday.
Now 51, he is here via Alfreton
Town, halifax Town, Oxford United
and Northampton Town. It is not
actually that long ago that he dealt
with financial peril at Northampton
or liquidation at non-League
halifax. Wages went unpaid and
when they came in, cheques would
bounce. This has been one hell of
a journey.
‘They are not fond memories,’ he
says. ‘At halifax, we were sup-
posed to be getting picked up by a
coach to Tamworth and it didn’t come.
We had to drive. Not a short trip! I said
to the boys, “There is no point keeping
your petrol receipts. You won’t be get-
ting reimbursed”.
‘A personal one was when my credit
card got declined in Sainsbury’s. We
used to get the cheques at the end of
the month and it’d be a mad scramble
to get them in quickly. The first lot got
cleared... I wasn’t lively enough on
that day.’++++++++++SINCe he took over in 2016, Wilder has
reinvigorated Sheffield United, a club
that had floundered for so long. he
bounces around the training ground,
meticulously overseeing every detail —
right down to the need for new sofas.
he still catches the bus into the city
centre, still watches Sunday league
football locally, still bleeds Blades.
‘I never had a dream of being in the
Premier League,’ Wilder claims. ‘It was
like snakes and ladders — I sometimes
went down to get back up... but I am a
good fit for this football club. Certainly
Sheffield United have been a good fit
for me.’
There is a vibrancy to him that the
wider world might not appreciate.
his free-flowing 3-5-2 system with
overlapping central defenders is com-pelling. They plan to continue slicing
through the lines and do not want to
merely sit back.
‘You can’t go gung-ho, but I don’t
want to change our mentality. It’d be
naive to think this way of playing will
open up the Premier League, we have
to adjust,’ Wilder says.
‘We have to go and score some goals
though. We realise that if we don’t, and
sit on the edge of our box, we’ll
get killed.
‘You’re not getting any points if you
don’t score goals. It’s important we
don’t cloud our judgment. They have to
express themselves. We’ve played fear-
less, front-foot football. It’s going to be
interesting to see how it pans out.’
Wilder laughs that he watched a
Manchester derby through his fingers
last year and the prospect of facing
these juggernauts is terrifying. But
Bramall Lane can be hostile, it can spit
and get on top of players.
‘I don’t want it to be comfortable for
players to step in, stroll about and walk
away with three points,’ he says. ‘But
there won’t be any old-school flat balls,
cold tea or wet floors.’
There is a confidence that the high
Court battle between co-owners Prince
Abdullah Bin Musa’ad Bin Abdul Aziz
Al Saud and Kevin McCabe will not
overshadow the top-flight return. ‘No
excuses,’ is Wilder’s message, and there
comes an insistence that off-field prob-
lems will not affect the team. They have
spent around £40million this summer,
and landed Phil Jagielka and ravel
Morrison on free transfers.W
ILder is also acutely
aware of how he is viewed.
A tracksuited manager,
english. he is one of eight
english bosses and there is a sense they
are flying the flag. his first adversary,
Bournemouth’s eddie howe, repre-
sents a perfect example of what can
be achieved.
‘There is that perception of myself, a
perception about english managers,’
Wilder says. ‘But go back to howard
Wilkinson. he won the First division
with Leeds — he was a school teacher
but an innovator. dave Bassett at Wim-
bledon and Sheffield United was the
same. People don’t know a lot about
that. he tried a psychologist, video
analysis.
‘The biggest is Sam Allardyce, really.
At Bolton he had Okocha, djorkaeff,
Campo, hierro. You’re not telling those
players to just put their foot through it
and get to the halfway line.
‘The perception for some of those
guys isn’t right when you scratch
beneath the surface. It maybe goes the
other way too. I’ve come across people
who look smart in a suit who haven’t
really got a lot underneath. Football is
an unforgiving business and you’re eas-
ily found out if you’re a bit of a fraud.’by JACK
GAUGHAN
@Ian_Ladyman_DM @Jack_GaughanWilder: ‘You
are easily
found out if
you’re a bit
of a fraud’
GETTY IMAGESand the day they visited was a
bank holiday. ‘everyone had gone
to the mountains so it was like a
ghost town,’ he smiles. ‘It felt a bit
too much at that time. It was a
northern Swedish summer day —
so about 10 degrees — and we just
felt so far away from everything.’
despite this, when the head
coach’s job came up 12 months
later, rachel agreed to move, leav-
ing behind a Pilates business she
had spent 10 years growing.
Potter’s success was astonishing.
he took the club through the divi-
sions, won the Swedish Cup and
debuted in the europa League
where they beat Arsenal 2-1 in
London in 2018. The sacrifices made
by his family were appreciated.
Ostersunds fans held up a banner
saying ‘Thank You rachel’ at one
game and also wrote her a letter.
‘We look back now and we both
say that it was the best thing we
ever did, professionally,’ he says.
‘And it was something we had to
do, really. Mainstream football
wouldn’t have been interested in a
coach working in higher education.
It was tough at first but actually
worse when we came back. It was
quite traumatic for the family to
leave Ostersund.
‘My eldest son struggled. Whenyou are eight, you miss your friends
and don’t understand why we have
to be in Swansea and not back in
Ostersund. Then he had just
settled in Wales and found friends
and now he has had to move again.
I am hoping he can forgive me.’
With dad now a Premier League
manager, life will be different once
again for the Potter family. Soli-
hull-born, Potter appears to be a
genuine, bright man. he is a little
different and we should embrace
that and hope the Premier League
does not change him too much.
‘I am looking forward to the chal-
lenge and thankfully I am at a
really good club,’ he says. ‘The
people here have been brilliant.
The club has values. I also have a
good family that I will listen to
when things are getting a bit crazy.
I can use their support.
‘I have been in football since I
was 17. I know how the game is
and the Premier League is the next
bit I suppose. I experienced it a
little bit as a player though it has
escalated since those days. But I
can only be myself. That’s the most
important thing. If that isn’t good
enough or isn’t what people want
that’s fine. I will just try to be me.’8
WILDER and
Potter are
among eight
English
Premier League
bosses this season.
No campaign since
2008 has begun
with more in
top-flight dugouts.РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS