Paul Heckingbottom said: “If a club is run perfectly, it doesn’t matter quite so much who’s in charge, really, as long as the club is making good decisions.”
What might have been a throwaway quote from a previous interview suddenly feels so much more pertinent for Paul Heckingbottom given his new position in charge of Sheffield United. The new Blades boss came out fighting in his press conference following Sunday’s shambolic collapse at Leicester City and his words felt thinly-veiled given he had effectively been thrown into the lion’s den. Or rather the Foxes’.
Paul Heckingbottom said: “It comes down to the running of a club, and what it takes to be successful. Yes, you need a good head coach or manager. But if a club is run perfectly, it doesn’t matter quite so much who’s in charge, really, as long as the club is making good decisions. A few months into our first season back in the Championship, I understood more about the consequences of that not happening. We hadn’t renegotiated contracts with the players early enough, so come January the club was scared we were going to lose them on free transfers at the end of the year. It was like a firesale. Goals went; assists went. We lost four of the starting XI in January, with another four wanting to leave. It was tough. But I was proud of how we worked through that period, and I include the players who wanted away in that, too. They handled themselves well during a challenging time. We said we were going to learn from it, but we didn’t really. We kept making similar mistakes.”
His candid post-match interview following the humiliation to Brendan Rodgers’ side was commendable for a manager who has been parachuted in to pick through the wreckage.
Paul Heckingbottom added: “As a manager, you’re the one who has to front everyone up.Whether it’s your decision or not, you have to make out like it’s the right one – especially when it affects players and dressing rooms because they’ve got to believe in you. They’ve got to follow you. But then you start to feel like it’s happening all over again and you’re not being listened to. You wonder: ‘What’s the point?’ Things I was told, the reasons I’d stayed – it’s a principle thing. Signings were being made without me even knowing.I couldn’t have that. Otherwise, you just become a puppet.”
