Somehow, the season is starting this week! Ahead of our trip up to Sheffield to face the newly promoted Blades, I caught up with lifelong Sheffield United fan and season ticket holder Lee Turner.
Q – Lee, back in the Premier league after a couple of seasons, how are you feeling about the season ahead?
LT – In a word, deflated. As it stands, we are starting the season in a worse position compared to this time last year in the Championship. We have lost our best player – Iliman Ndiaye – just last week, having signed for his boyhood club Marseille for a reported £20million.
It’s hard to overstate what a loss he is, both in terms of output (25 goal involvements last season) but also style of play. He was the player the team looked to do something a bit special, he was relentless in the press as well. who can get you out of your seat.
Losing him would be bad enough – but we’ve also lost two of our other best players from last season in the loan pair of MacAtee and Doyle who have returned to Manchester City, their home club, and news is breaking that Sander Berge may also be on his way. We’re still hopeful of securing at least a couple of loan signings in the next few weeks, but that doesn’t leave us that well placed for our opening fixtures and our midfield in particular looks bare.
You can understand the individual decisions – although they feel like spreadsheet based rather than thinking about the team and how competitive we will be. As a fan you want to feel like you have a chance going into games but right now, we feel quite far from that. It’s not even just the outgoings, injuries have hit us hard, especially in attack – both McBurnie and Brewster aren’t available, and we have brought in a few new players, notably striker Benie Traore but from pre-season it looks like he might need some time to get up to speed.
So overall, not looking too promising for the match up with Palace – albeit with the hope is that we can solidify in the weeks ahead.
Q – Eagles fans can recognise that feeling, so how about the season long ambition, and who are the players to watch out for?
LT – Obviously, we will hope to avoid relegation, but as per the situation with the team, I think quite a proportion of the fan base have probably resigned themselves to a hard slog of a season.
In terms of players to watch out for, I’d say centre back Anel Ahmedhodži. He is a very front foot defender who will look to progress the ball as you saw with Chris Basham a few seasons ago, he’s also got a good goal scoring record for a centre back.
Q – Speaking of Basham, how similar / different is this team to the wonderful Chris Wilder crew of a couple of years back?
LT – You’ll see a bit of that Wilder team, the overlapping centre backs and the triangle corners. Realistically we are waiting to see which Premier League fringe players we can get which may affect our approach.
Typically, we still line up in a version of 3-5-2, although last year this sometimes became more like 3-4 -2 -1 with almost a double attacking pivot behind the central striker. Either way the width will be provided by wing backs, likely to start as Baldock (although Bogle may take his place when he returns from injury) and Lowe on the other side (although there is also a question of his match fitness ahead of this weekend).
Q – So another interesting tactical season ahead! What’s your views on Palace for the season?
LT – Probably in around that middle section, possibly in a bit of trouble at times, but likely to win enough to pull away from the relegation zone. But it does beg the question, which we have within our fan base, is it better to be a yoyo club where when you go down, can win most of your games but then come up and perhaps struggle? I don’t know the answer but Palace have become almost the opposite of a yo-yo club with apparent security but perhaps a lack of excitement. I’m not sure which I prefer but it is an interesting contrast.
TEB – We had an interesting discussion on the merits of each, with the conclusion that for Palace, we have been so close to the fire of administration that the apparent safety of mid-table is definitely not taken for granted, hence the perhaps caution first approach, for example re-appointing Hodgson, but this has allowed us to develop the wider infrastructure around the team, and the key ‘excitement’ in recent years has been through the FA cup. Here’s hoping Hodgson may take a more expansive approach in cup competitions than he has been known for.
LT – The other question from the outside is how big a miss will Zaha prove to be?
TEB – Only time will tell, but it does feel we are better placed now than at any time since about 2015 to be without our best ever player. So, go on then who is the one Eagles player you’d love to have in the Blades line-up?
LT – Eze, easy. He would bring that creativity that I fear we will be lacking.
Q – And if I gave you a complete magic wand to get anyone?
LT – The easy thing would be to bring Ndiaye back – one of the best forwards on and off the ball I’ve seen. He also has that intangible ‘thing’ that gets fans out of their seats. If I can’t have him, I think realistically (excluding the possibility of Kane or Mbappe), Cameron Archer from Villa.
Q – Lastly, any arch enemies / pantomime villains for the Sheffield United fans – I know obviously that Wednesday lot, but from last time, did you have beef with Villa due to the ‘ghost goal?’)
LT – Well, that wasn’t really the fault of the Villa players or fans. So, for us it has always been Forest, who we have away in a couple of weeks. There are some historic grievances (see Miners Strike) but more recently there was a pitch invasion a couple of seasons ago where Billy Sharp was injured after a Forest fan headbutted him. Even late last season there were still legal recriminations ongoing from the incident. So, in short, I am anticipating a very tasty atmosphere when we play forest.
TEB – Tasty indeed. Anything else?
LT – Here’s hoping the low expectations of blade’s fans are massively overturned!
Cheers Lee, all the best for the season (after hosting us!)
