blades blog Am I promophobic

Posted: March 26th 2009
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It’s the only diagnosis I’ve got, the only rational explanation for my condition.

Fighting against the virulent, airborne BDTBL bacteria that feed off a debate over the likelihood of automatic promo versus play-off, I suspect I have the irrational and disabling fear of being promoted. I am thus promophobic.

I wish I could join the massed ranks of so-called healthy supporters mentally queuing for a play-off ticket, prematurely weighing up our chances of Premiership survival next year, but I can’t. So here’s the question/s: am I sick or are they?

More importantly: Is it right to worship at the alter of promotion even though you’re undeserving? Should I just belt up and celebrate the push for the Prem? Is promotion the most important factor irrespective of the ability to sustain survival? Does it matter if you scrape up by the skin of your teeth in a workmanlike fashion?

I’ve been knocking this blog together for a little while now, delaying so that each new result would gloss my musings with a tiny bit more credence but things have gone remarkably well and Utd can’t stop collecting points so it’s time to say it anyway. It’s a hard thing to say because it’s difficult being the gentle breeze of a reasonable voice set against a howling gale of ignorance, passion and fury. At best you’ll think I’m deliberately trying to be provocative, at worst a disloyal fan.

All year long it has been said by all and sundry, from media pundits to Kop whingers, even from the cockeyed Shoreham St optimists, that we are not promotion material, that we do not have a clear definition of how we want to play, that we do not have the talent to mount a challenge. And everything I’ve seen with my own eyes has simply backed that up. Sure, we’ve played with immense spirit and dogged determination. We’ve been ‘solid’ and our away form – unbeaten in 14 away visits – puts us at the forefront of the division. But we’ve hardly lit up the Championship. Home form has been inconsistent and a wonderful away win has on at least two occasions been followed by a woeful home defeat.

“Maybe the football hasn’t been great and needs refinement, but the league position is sound enough and so is the club,” said the Sheffield Telegraph in February. Spot on and the key words there were “great”, “football” and “not”, in case you missed the theme.

So why then oh why are we not slipping down the play-off places and into the mire which is Championship mid-table mediocrity? How come we almost drifted into the play-off places, falling head-first towards a possible promotion, like it was a bit of an afterthought, like it was something we didn’t mean to do but hey if you’re offering it around we’ll have it anyway? 

Astonishing considering the fact that it’s all been done amid a downsizing, or “re-profiling”, as the board preferred to put it (see earlier blogs).  Since the summer Utd have spent £4m on players and received double that in fees if they realise their full potential. Beattie’s sale cut a welcome swathe through the wage bill though our injured veterans continue to represent a millstone somewhat disproportionate to their contribution, or lack of it, through injury.

So how has it been achieved – how come we are where we are? What is that we’ve done so right which has put us in this position?

One of the reasons has to be the fall-back position recovered from the sale of James Beattie. As talented as he was he performed a specific function according to his size and skills and more often than not he made all the difference, stealing and saving points. I’ve never subscribed to the Good Riddance BT brigade (a class of blogger who comes out of the woodwork only when subsequent results following the sale go very well). But it transpires, since he left, that he performed at times, to the detriment of the team as a whole and that the big target man tactic was limiting in terms of trying a more varied and innovative armoury of tactics. We’re now using Henderson, with relish, in the same position and our apparent continued successful use of the system only seems to add credence to the theory that this is perhaps the surefire way to get promoted out of this league.

I can’t even blame the manager for my malaise. Kev’s record currently says he’s played 55, won 26, drawn 16 and lost 13, garnering 94 points. We’ve currently lost just twice in 19 so why doesn’t it feel right?

The answer, I believe, is tucked away in the bigger picture of a humdrum Championship season made up of workmanlike clubs of which none have satisfactorily laid a claim to say they’ll make a decent stab of a Premiership season. And it is my assertion that we should be included in this round-up of motley wanna-bes. I prefer to see three stand-out clubs with great track records, who’ve beaten Prem opposition in getting to the quarters and semis of cups, who’ve wiped the floor with the Championship dross and won the plaudits of opposition supporters by outplaying/outclassing them.

I fear promotion because I am a purist. I believe you should be able to stand proudly, stake your claim and assert your dominance. Other supporters should preface their own summary of the Championship season by saying: “ yeh but the Blades have been on a different level to the rest of us.” Instead we’re damned by faint praise – opposition managers and supporters say we’re “well-organised” and “physical”, “a big club”. These are no doubt prerequisites needed for Championship escape but where’s the icing, the gloss, the bling. No-one says we ripped them apart, tore open their defence and left them in tatters.

In the last promo year three years ago I objectively thought just over half the team were capable of playing in the top tier and Jagielka’s gone on to prove it this season with Everton. But this season I’m struggling to “big up” the current team and their realistic chances of competing with the cream of Europe in the Premiership. Solid players, backed up by veteran experience and a very light sprinkling of youth was always Warnock’s recipe for success and Blackwell has carbon copied the system But it didn’t cope well when it was put under more severe pressure than second tier football, especially not if you’re too cautious in trying to take them on when you get there.

I fear us being promoted because, in this season of “ok” teams, we might well end up sneaking in via the play-offs. There’s little likelihood of a spending spree and why would you want blokes who’ve actually established a sound commercial club with a footballing debt said to be just £3m, to do so when others are pawning the family treasures, or soon will be. But you’ve got to wonder how on earth we’d survive if we did go up. What will it all have been for? – a wholesale clear-out of the players not able to cope who’ll go on to help another team get promoted, the Windass factor for the older ones and another season of toil begging points from teams who should know better, collecting crumbs from those who continually flirt with the lower end of the Premiership? I want more, much more than this and I want see us go up when we look like we really could stay up there.

“Forget the hangover, let’s just get in the party,” a mate says to me after rolling Derby over. A part of me wants to agree but I remember only too well that he said something similar three years ago and that nothing’s really changed. Perhaps I’m too fussy. Perhaps, if we’re lucky enough to go up, I should rejoice and hope that the West Ham millions will attract enough quality to give us a sporting chance.

But as we wave to the West Brom, Middlesbrough and Stoke fans dejectedly travelling the reverse journey, do we really think we’ll do any better? What truly objective Blade would give us an earthly?