If any manager has enough credit in the bank to bounce back from the sack, it’s Chris Wilder. After all, this is a coach who took Sheffield United from the depths of the third tier to within touching distance of European qualification. To a 3-0 thumping of Chelsea, a famous win over Arsenal, and an eventual top-half Premier League finish.
A man who achieved promotion with Oxford United and Northampton Town. A 2019 LMA Manager of the Year winner to boot.
“In English football there are incredibly good managers,” none other than Pep Guardiola said a year ago. “They are innovative, they have courage to play. If (Chris Wilder was in charge of Manchester City), he would fight to be the champion.”
Wilder’s sacking by Middlesbrough on Monday, then, is very unlikely to spell the death knell of his managerial career.
Especially when you consider that the 55-year-old, who pioneered that inspired overlapping centre-back system in the bowls of the EFL, was far from the only guilty party in Boro’s dreadful start to the Championship season. Now, his sudden availability is likely to have the owner of many a struggling Championship club considering their options.
Take West Brom, for instance.
Steve Bruce out, Chris Wilder in at West Brom?
The Baggies are just one place above Middlesbrough in the table after all. As such, Wilder’s Riverside exit serves to pile even more pressure on another under-fire manager. One limping along at the wrong end with another underperforming promotion favourite.
This West Brom side, one containing the likes of Jed Wallace, John Swift, Karlan Grant, Grady Diangana and Okay Yokuslu, should be in and around the top six at the minimum. Defeat against Preston North End on Wednesday, following Saturday’s miserable home defeat to Swansea City, should see Steve Bruce become the second managerial casualty in a matter of days.
Interestingly, Wilder was ‘the unanimous choice’ of the Baggies board to take over from Sam Allardyce in the summer of 2021, before owner Guochuan Lai opted for Valerien Ismael instead, per Joseph Masi of Express and Star. With that in mind, do not be surprised if West Brom are already canvassing opinion on a man with plenty of admirers behind the scenes at the Hawthorns, as Bruce hangs on with the final cuticle of his fingernails.
Wilder, at Sheffield United, constructed a side with an identity. A clear, consistent plan. One capable of digging in, outplaying and outrunning any opposition while grinding out results in the heat of the promotion battle. If West Brom decide to twist rather than stick, it’s hard to imagine many managers who ticks more boxes than Chris Wilder.
“I’ve played him a couple of times,” recalls former England boss Steve McClaren, via The Star.
“I remember when I was at QPR. (Wilder’s Sheffield United) beat us. And I thought; ‘This is a team, this’. He said; ‘We’re a team which needs to be 100 per cent. Every player, every week. If we are 99 per cent or 98, we lose games. We need to be 100 per cent’.
“And what he’s doing, he’s getting 100 per cent. It’s phenomenal.”
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
