Football Ground Map
Football Ground Map
It's hard to believe that Sheffield United are in this position. Just over a year ago, the club were flying high after finishing ninth in their first season back in the Premier League. Now, they've suffered relegation from the top flight, and find themselves languishing in the bottom three of the Championship at the beginning of the new campaign.
For a team that looked so at home in the Premier League, Sheffield United's fall from grace has been as surprising as it has swift. Chris Wilder seemed to have built a sturdy outfit capable of taking on all the big boys of English football, but things came crashing down fast. Wilder was soon out of a job, and Paul Heckingbottom was unable to mount a spirited fightback.
Now, Championship promotion specialist Slaviša Jokanovic is the man charged with reversing the Blades' fortunes, but it has been a poor start to the season. Defeats to Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town, along with draws against Swansea City and Luton Town, have defined a winless start to the new Championship season. With Sheffield United having been tipped as favourites for promotion, they are now being mooted in the Championship relegation odds 2021/22.
The last team to suffer successive relegations from the Premier League all the way down to League One was Sunderland, as documented by the popular Netflix series Sunderland 'Til I Die, and Sheffield United will be keen to avoid a similar fate. It is not that long since the Blades were slumming it in the third tier, and it would be a devastating blow for their supporters to find themselves back in league One after tasting the giddy delights of the top flight.
Of course, there is still plenty of time for the Yorkshire outfit to recover and get back to winning ways. A team always needs time to settle under a new manager, but if Jokanovic is to be successful then he will need to get his messages across to the players quickly. The Championship is a notoriously competitive division, and having not won in their opening five fixtures, they've already lost ground on the rest of the pack hoping to earn promotion.
You'd expect Sheffield United to be too good over the course of the whole season to go down, but the Championship betting tips that backed them for automatic promotion may need amending. It'll take a monumental effort for the Blades to mount a promotion push, but then again teams have suffered worse starts and still gone up in the past. It's hard to know how things will go for them from here, but it's clear that Sheffield United need to find some form quickly.
It's not that long since Wilder's side were being heralded as a breath of fresh air in the Premier League, and it must be hard for supporters to stomach this decline, particularly as they missed so much of Sheffield United's top flight stint as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. All the fans can do now is raise the roof at Bramall Lane and hope that Jokanovic finds the winning formula sooner rather than later.
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