Chris Wilder
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder has revealed he will not be making any more signings today as the deadline for transfers from the EFL closes at 5pm. The Blades boss was speaking to the media this morning as he held his pre-match press conference ahead of Sunday’s clash at home to Scott Parker’s Fulham.
Chris Wilder said “No. The players in the building are the ones we are going to go with. Those players will take us through to January.” Yeah we have a couple of injury issues with boys from international duty and a potential issue with one of our players (Egan) – I can’t confirm or deny if he will be available for the weekend, we are still working away with the authorities. As always I will give them to the last minute, all important members of the squad, will make decisions over the next 24-48 hours and will give everybody the opportunity to put their hands up and be available for selection. If they are not then hopefully we will pick a side that goes well on Sunday.They understand that – every game is a big opportunity. One thing you look at is the body language and it’s super positive, it’s always a positive environment in the training ground. We are not thinking everything is great and brilliant, we are not in a position where we want to be – we are the only ones who can change that, we will have a couple of good days training and prepare well for Sunday. I don’t see a team feeling sorry for themselves, there was a period of 10 minutes at Arsenal after the second goal went in but in the other games I haven’t seen a team who has the white flag up. We need to up our standards, it’s difficult to do anything from a tactical point of view when eight or nine players are away and they are in your first team – but the lads have worked hard on their individual skills, from a conditioning point of view and getting up to speed, doing more work. The boys have not had much time off, we have been in quite a lot and worked extremely hard and as you can imagine with so many players being away it’s been impossible – we haven’t done any unit work to involve those players. Fulham has been in and out the Premier League for the last two or three years, but previous to that have been an established Premier League club. A lot of good players, they have kept majority of their players who were in the Premier League, added to them and had a good group before that. We played against them twice when they got promoted in our first season back in the Championship – had an incredible game at Bramall Lane and a comfortable one for them down at Craven Cottage in the second part of the season.”I am not going to write us off at this stage – and I don’t think anybody else should be at this early stage. It’s not the start that Scott and his team would have wanted and not the start that my team wanted but there are plenty of games to play and they have a manager who was hugely successful last season and has got very talented players. They will be looking for their first result of the season as much as we are. My opinion on them is that they have a lot of very good players, international players and players who have decent pedigree having come for a lot of money and Scott is a committed and intelligent football man and he will want to take this opportunity and be a success.”
Earlier it was believed that Blades boss will bring in another defender after losing Jack O’Connell for the rest of the season. The centre half has had to undergo knee surgery that means he will miss the next six months. Wilder could have more to worry about too on the injury front as four of his players returned home early from international duty. John Fleck, Oliver Burke and David McGoldrick all picked up injuries, while there is also an issue regarding John Egan’s availability after he came into close contact with a member of the Republic of Ireland team who had tested positive for Covid.
