Pre Sheffield United match chat
Week today so seemed as good a time as any for this.
Would be remiss of me to not mention the tragic events that unfolded earlier this week.
The sad death of George Baldock who played for our opponents for 7 years.
Only 31, shows how fragile it all is, he played a match in Greece on the Sunday, was found on the Wednesday.
Very sad, a clip from a radio show popped up on my twitter feed, turns out a young boy needed a defibrillator, he had a heart issue. So the club invited him down, meet the players sort of thing I guess (during covid this was). And Baldock just said he'd buy it, no publicity, nothing to do with the club, his own money.
Nice guy and hopefully some form of tribute is organised for Friday
Anyhow
First game back after another stupid international break sees 2nd vs 5th.
3 points separate the teams
Sheffield United are the only unbeaten side left in the Championship this season with 6 wins and 3 draws, they also have the best defence with only 3 goals conceded
Not the most free scoring of sides with only 12 goals, but had a very decent season so far.
If you put stock in xG and stuff though the defence is a bit more iffy than the 3 goals conceded suggests, they should have conceded 6-7 but either the opponent missed when they shouldn't or the goalie made a great save.
Last game out they beat struggling Luton 2-0.
Bit of extra added motivation with old ham face Wilder making multiple digs at us in the summer and in the past.
In terms of key player the main one is Gus Hamer, he's scored 4 of the 12 goals Sheffield United have managed and got one assist from a new role out wide
Loan signing Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has had a struggle but got both goals vs Luton and may see him kick on now.
And of course like all parachute payment clubs they kept hold of people like Anel Ahmedhodžić and Vini Souza and highly rated Ollie Arblaster.
Added proven Championship players like Keifer Moore and Callum O'Hare and goalie Michael Cooper whose maybe a bit of an unsung hero.
Tactically the old overlapping cb stuff has gone for a more traditional low block 4-2-3-1, judging by possession stats they seem quite happy to sit deep and break on teams with the energy in midfield they have and pace.
From our point of view a very frustrating end to the Sunderland game robbed us of 2 points.
A very decent performance in parts though, less so in others.
Willy Gnonto showing once again he can step out of the shadow of his departed best mates Georgie and Jimmy and be the main man.
Joel Piroe showing that he is perfectly capable of playing as a loan striker and is actually bloody good at it.
And Firpo continuing his transformation into Roberto Carlos.
But will we perhaps have a new midfielder?
Mateo Joseph scored a first half treble this week, does that change the thinking about who starts up front?
Aaronson after a bright start is struggling, is a case to he made for a change in that role?
We hope to have Dan James and Manor Solomon back of course, do they come back in?
We also have the issue of people like Tanaka and Aaronson maybe only getting back to training on Thursday.
Our record vs the better teams this season isn't good, we can debate bad luck etc but we've played 4 top half teams and not beaten any of them, 5 if you include Boro in the cup.
So needs to change surely.
Anyway any thoughts etc.
Would be remiss of me to not mention the tragic events that unfolded earlier this week.
The sad death of George Baldock who played for our opponents for 7 years.
Only 31, shows how fragile it all is, he played a match in Greece on the Sunday, was found on the Wednesday.
Very sad, a clip from a radio show popped up on my twitter feed, turns out a young boy needed a defibrillator, he had a heart issue. So the club invited him down, meet the players sort of thing I guess (during covid this was). And Baldock just said he'd buy it, no publicity, nothing to do with the club, his own money.
Nice guy and hopefully some form of tribute is organised for Friday
Anyhow
First game back after another stupid international break sees 2nd vs 5th.
3 points separate the teams
Sheffield United are the only unbeaten side left in the Championship this season with 6 wins and 3 draws, they also have the best defence with only 3 goals conceded
Not the most free scoring of sides with only 12 goals, but had a very decent season so far.
If you put stock in xG and stuff though the defence is a bit more iffy than the 3 goals conceded suggests, they should have conceded 6-7 but either the opponent missed when they shouldn't or the goalie made a great save.
Last game out they beat struggling Luton 2-0.
Bit of extra added motivation with old ham face Wilder making multiple digs at us in the summer and in the past.
In terms of key player the main one is Gus Hamer, he's scored 4 of the 12 goals Sheffield United have managed and got one assist from a new role out wide
Loan signing Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has had a struggle but got both goals vs Luton and may see him kick on now.
And of course like all parachute payment clubs they kept hold of people like Anel Ahmedhodžić and Vini Souza and highly rated Ollie Arblaster.
Added proven Championship players like Keifer Moore and Callum O'Hare and goalie Michael Cooper whose maybe a bit of an unsung hero.
Tactically the old overlapping cb stuff has gone for a more traditional low block 4-2-3-1, judging by possession stats they seem quite happy to sit deep and break on teams with the energy in midfield they have and pace.
From our point of view a very frustrating end to the Sunderland game robbed us of 2 points.
A very decent performance in parts though, less so in others.
Willy Gnonto showing once again he can step out of the shadow of his departed best mates Georgie and Jimmy and be the main man.
Joel Piroe showing that he is perfectly capable of playing as a loan striker and is actually bloody good at it.
And Firpo continuing his transformation into Roberto Carlos.
But will we perhaps have a new midfielder?
Mateo Joseph scored a first half treble this week, does that change the thinking about who starts up front?
Aaronson after a bright start is struggling, is a case to he made for a change in that role?
We hope to have Dan James and Manor Solomon back of course, do they come back in?
We also have the issue of people like Tanaka and Aaronson maybe only getting back to training on Thursday.
Our record vs the better teams this season isn't good, we can debate bad luck etc but we've played 4 top half teams and not beaten any of them, 5 if you include Boro in the cup.
So needs to change surely.
Anyway any thoughts etc.