Chris Wilder interview: When Sheffield United get poked, we retaliate and push back

Telegraph

24-05-2025

Regardless of the result at Wembley in the match worth more than £200 million, Chris Wilder will be back at Bramall Lane the next evening to see Paul Heaton perform at the stadium where they both watched Sheffield United from the terraces.
At first glance, it seems an unlikely friendship. Wilder has rubbed shoulders with Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp and José Mourinho as a manager, while Heaton is a musical anti-hero, who had No 1s with The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, but is far removed from Premier League glamour.
Yet there are striking similarities, both are champions of the underdog as well as having Blades in the blood.
When Wilder needed words of inspiration ahead of the Steel City derby earlier in the season, he commissioned motivational messages from Heaton, along with Joe Root and Matt Fitzpatrick, from the club's well-known supporters.
'Paul is a friend and a big Sheffield United fan as well,' Wilder says. 'I'll be there without a win, but it will seal a magical week if we get the result, which is the biggest thing to focus on.
'We've had to get the culture right, but it's what Sheffield United is about, what Matt Fitzpatrick is about, what Chris Wilder is about and maybe what Paul Heaton is: 'Let's go to work, let's stay real, let's get on with being good at jobs'.'
Wilder is qualified to speak about what Sheffield is about. Aside from a few years as a child, when his family briefly moved to London, he has lived in the city for his entire life. When he moved back, aged 10, he started to go to Bramall Lane. If he was not the manager, he would have been travelling down with friends to Wembley for the Championship play-off final against Sunderland and watching from the stands.
'My pals are dotted all around the ground,' he says. 'We talk about when I finish. I'd love that opportunity of going to meet them for a pint at 12 o'clock and having a little walk, watching the game and having a moan-up like they do. I'll go with the family, grandkids and pals and see it from that side.'
'Lazy to say we tossed away automatic promotion'
Now 57, Wilder has been at the heart of Sheffield United being one of the football underdog stories of the last nine years since he was appointed for the first time at his beloved club. From League One to the Premier League and now on the brink of returning to the top flight again.
He rails against the suggestions of having an advantage with the parachute payments that come with relegation, and points out that it has been conveniently forgotten that the club were docked two points this season for defaulting on payments. The deduction is not shown on the tables of the BBC and Sky Sports websites.
'I spoke to Daniel Farke [the Leeds manager] and he said that really the two points would have made a difference to Leeds United. Especially the way they are as an emotional football club,' Wilder says. 'I do believe it has been overlooked, 92 points is an outstanding season.
'We weren't at the level of Burnley and Leeds at the start of the season in terms of what we had to deal with. In my opinion our challenges were far greater at the start and even through the season. We would have had to get 103 points to go up, so even if we won all three games that week we wouldn't have got that number. We just had a bad week. I don't think we tossed it away. It's pretty lazy to say that.'
Wilder is referring to the week in April when his team lost to Oxford, Millwall and Plymouth in a week. The defeat at Home Park ended with Wilder in a bust-up with opposition players, and the club adding to their Football Association fines for the season.
Another angle of Chris Wilder's clash with the Plymouth players after full-time 👀 pic.twitter.com/hmai6RfMEx
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) April 12, 2025
The governing body has fined them a total of £445,500 and says it was an 'incredibly poor period of behaviour'. Wilder admits he is now at a period of his career where he is thinking less about what he ought to say. He took aim at fans earlier in the season for criticism aimed at his players. When last in the Premier League, he was fined for his rant at an assistant referee for eating during talks between officials and manager.
'I'm not doing it for effect. I do it out of what I genuinely feel,' Wilder says. 'We're a breed that when we get poked, we retaliate and push back. That is just the characteristics of people from this city. And I'm that. There have been certain things there and it is an emotional sport. I am an emotional guy in terms of how I go about managing and how I go about representing. Sometimes it is not for some people, sometimes it's OK, but I'm not here to win any credit or favour.
'I was talking about it to my pal the other day, I've got to that stage in my football career where you have to say the right things and do the right things … you come out of that and go into you own personality. And I've got to the stage now really where I'm not bothered about impressing anybody, I'm just going to say what I feel and what I think.
'I'm only human. I make mistakes. I say certain things that, maybe when I put my head on the pillow, I think 'should I have said that? Should I have been a bit more conservative?' It is what it is. I have to get on with it and move forward.'
Wilder went viral earlier in the season after the derby in November. Heaton, Root and Fitzpatrick had helped players prepare for the match with their messages, then after the victory Wilder celebrated like most fans do: a pint and a sing-song in a pub on Ecclesall Road. It showed the rivalry between the two Sheffield clubs is as fierce as ever.
Chris Wilder celebrating the Steel City Derby win tonight by changing Sheffield Wednesday's song "Danny, Danny Rohl" to "Sausage, Sausage Rohl's"😂😂😂 #twitterblades pic.twitter.com/oIxzMpOjJ3
— The 44 ⚽️ (@The_Forty_Four) November 10, 2024
'Maybe it's gone to a different level now. Maybe not a level. Maybe two or three levels. I don't know whether that is social media bringing it in. Maybe the actions of the Sheffield United manager has not really helped my cause at times,' he says.
Should they defeat Sunderland and return to the Premier League, there will be lessons learnt from the last time they went up. Under Paul Heckingbottom, they lost Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge – their two most impactful players – and had to call for Wilder to return mid-campaign.
'The team was undercooked. The club spent £15 million on the team that summer, which when you talk about Ipswich struggling and spending £150 million ...' Wilder adds. 'The club were not prepared, we lost our best two players through contractual issues and that was really disappointing for the club to be in that position and for the players here to gain promotion and lose their best two players.
'Paul had a difficult hand dealt from the off. I've picked those cards up and had to play them as well. Resetting and getting us back to what the club should look like and play like was the most important thing. When that door opens to the Premier League you have to be prepared to step through it.'