The Sheffield United boss has been speaking about the play-off chasing Tigers – and he is full of compliments about them
Chris Wilder(Image: Getty Images)
Chris Wilder says Hull City are the ‘opposite’ of his Sheffield United team.
The Blades boss welcomes Sergej Jakirovic and the Tigers to Bramall Lane this weekend looking to frustrate the play-off ambitions Wilder hoped would be his.
However, while City are riding high in fifth, the Blades – who finished third and narrowly missed out on promotion last season – are way down in 17th.
Indeed Wilder’s side have not won any of their last six games and the experienced manager contrasts that with the results Jakirovic has been able to coax from the Championship’s surprise package.
“I think if you go from a statistical point of view, people will be scratching their heads and thinking ‘How are they up there?’”, Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield.
“But they’re up there through personality, they’re up there through character – and we know half of them – and they’re up there on merit and deservedly so because they’ve won games of football.
“They’ve found a way to deal with big moments, they’ve found a way to, to turn losses into draws and to turn draws into wins – and we’re the opposite. They’re in a position deservedly so.
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“Whatever the way they set up, however they sit deep or press, they enjoy the suffering when their backs are against the wall and they deal with that – and when they’re on top, they put teams to bed.
“It’s pretty simplistic, isn’t it? Everybody can talk about the style but the trust is in the team and there’s a graph, there’s a performance graph, and then there’s a trust graph. There’s these two lines, and you want to be top performance, top trust.
“Maybe Coventry are in there for us, at times maybe we’ve nudged our performances in certain games better than it was last season, but where it falls down is the trust and dealing with the tough moments, and grinding one out, and getting results when you’re not playing well and getting results when you play well.
“That’s what Coventry have done, that’s what Hull have done, why they’re up there, and Southampton, that’s what they’ve done.”
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