OPINION
Leeds United should feel miffed over Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder’s latest remarks as they insult the club in many ways.
Jim White was interviewing the Sheffield Utd boss on Friday and asked him how he felt about winning promotion ahead of Leeds and Aston Villa when he considers both those clubs had a bigger budget to work with.
Wilder responded to White’s question in a smug way by saying it struck a blow to clubs who relied on their chequebooks and highlighted how the Blades had succeeded due to hard work, team spirit, good recruitment and training hard.
“Well I think it just strikes a blow Jim for others and y’know what can be achieved through a bit of hard-work, good recruitment, work on the training ground, bit of togetherness, bit of team spirit and a bit of the old-fashion stuff that was about a few years ago that has been overtaken by a cheque-books scenario,” said Wilder on talkSPORT (11:38am, Friday May 3rd).
While the Sheffield boss clearly just wanted to blow his own side’s trumpet, which is understandable, his comments insult what Leeds have achieved this season.
Leeds haven’t just thrown money at their promotion hopes in order to reach their Premier League, their players have worked equally as hard and have just as good a team spirit as the Blades.
Wilder’s remarks imply that Leeds don’t have the same work-ethic or team spirit that the Blades have, and that’s unfair.
Marcelo Bielsa is known for making his players work extremely hard in training and you can tell that a lot of Leeds players have put in the hours behind-the-scenes this season as some of them have drastically improved.
If Leeds had simply attempted to buy the league by splashing ridiculous money, which they haven’t, then you could understand Wilder’s remarks.
However the fact of the manner is, Leeds haven’t, they spent wisely and work just as hard as Sheffield United, yet the way results have panned out they’ve narrowly missed out on automatic promotion.