Wed 02 Aug - Posted in Breaking News
Time to read: 3mins
We are into our final three teams of our day-by-day countdown to the new Sky Bet Championship season!
From starting in the middle of July, dcfc.co.uk has been profiling all of the clubs that the Rams will be coming up against over the course of the 2017/18 season.
After analysing Sheffield Wednesday yesterday, we move our attentions to the Steel City’s other side in the second tier after they returned last season following a six-year absence…
Manager: Chris Wilder
Nickname: The Blades
Stadium Capacity: 32,702
Finishing Place Last Season: 1st, Champions of League 1 (100 Points)
Top Scorer (2016/17): Billy Sharp (30 Goals)
Promotion Odds (According to Coral): 7/1
Home – Saturday 26th August 2017
Away – Monday 1st January 2018
Derby County 0-1 Sheffield United
Sheffield United 0-1 Derby County
Sheffield United are back!
After six years of League One football, which has included three near-misses on the promotion front, the Blades returned to the second tier at the end of last campaign, doing so emphatically by storming to the League One title.
The mastermind behind it lies at the feet of a boyhood Sheffield United supporter.
Chris Wilder was a Blade growing up, made his professional bow with the club, returned towards the end of his playing days and is now the man in charge at Bramall Lane.
He got his opportunity after guiding Northampton Town to the League 2 title at the end of the 2015/16 season – again, emphatically – but could he do what six managers before him couldn’t and steer United towards promotion?
It didn’t start well.
Three defeats from the first four matches left Wilder’s side bottom, but the manager was never fazed. In fact, he always insisted that the tide would turn.
And so it did.
The Blades’ first win of the season came at the end of August – a 2-1 home victory over Oxford United – and that proved to be the start of something special, even something possibly beyond their wildest expectations.
United won 11 of their next 15 matches – drawing the other four – and had moved from the foot of the League 1 table to third.
That ended with a 1-0 defeat at home to Walsall, but the Blades were relentless and simply just picked up where they left off.
Six straight wins took United to the summit and by this time promotion looked to be the only conceivable outcome.
Wilder’s men only tasted defeat twice over the remainder of the campaign – to Walsall and Fleetwood Town – but United were rampant and even ended the season by recording 13 wins and four draws from the final 17 fixtures to reach the 100 points mark.
With momentum in their sails, the Blades, a big club at this level, look a force to be reckoned with in their first season back in the Championship since 2011.
