A pretty impressive mission statement.
And a clear message that the Blades aren’t going to take things lying down this season, just as they didn’t last campaign. That was what John Egan wanted to get across when talking about the upcoming season for Sheffield United.
Speaking on the club’s pre-season tour of Scotland (via @The_Bladesman), the Blades defender sent out a strong message about how the club are going into this season full of focus and hoping to repeat their impressive feat by proving the doubters wrong once again.
“Last season they were saying first season syndrome, and now they’re saying second season syndrome. There’s always going to be question marks. All you can do as a team is put the blinkers on and get ready for the next game.”
All I will say, is that if you say these words, you need to then go out and prove it.
The Blades will finish ______ than last season?
Higher
Lower
There’s a reason people talk about ‘second-season syndrome’, because even though it isn’t always the case, there are still plenty of cases of teams who struggle after their first time in the division as the other teams ‘find them out’ and can exploit the tactics that got them this far.
Whilst I do expect there to be some level of drop-off this year, mainly because of some teams finding out a way to beat us, I’m not expecting a complete disaster from the Blades, pulling off a repeat of Hull City for instance, who were doing well in their first season in the Premier League, only to end up relegated the next season.
But at the same time, if Egan and the rest of the team are so convinced that everything will be fine, then it’s up to them to make sure that it’s the case, we don’t want these words to come back and bite us later on in the campaign when we’re scrapping in a relegation battle.