“No disrespect to Burnley…”- Greg Halford makes a daring play-off final assertion for Sheffield United.
Greg Halford has discussed the reasons behind Sheffield United’s collapse in the 2009 play-off final.
Greg Halford has been talking about his 2008–09 season loan from Sunderland to Sheffield United.
Halford, who currently plays for the non-league team Hashtag United after most recently playing in the English Football League in 2018 with Cardiff City, was a member of the Blades team that advanced to the 2008–09 play-off final but lost to Burnley.
On the Under The Cosh podcast, he has discussed the loss and whether the team could have performed better both in that game and the entire season.
In the play-off final, should Sheffield United have defeated Burnley?
Halford’s game-winning goal in the second leg propelled Sheffield United to the play-off final after they defeated Preston North End over two legs.
Wade Elliott’s goal in the 13th minute propelled Burnley into the Premier League after they defeated Reading 3-0 overall to get to Wembley.
Halford thinks his teammates’ nerves got the better of them that day.
When he thought back on his time in the EFL, he stated: “We simply never showed up. When you compare our team to Burnley’s—and we don’t mean any disrespect to them—you can see that we should have walked the league and that game.
“You know James Beattie first half of the season, Danny Webber, Billy Sharp, Arturo Lupoli, Kilgallon, Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton, and Paddy (Kenny) as well it was an unbelievable team.”
Under a different manager, would Sheffield United have performed better?
Sheffield United was led by Kevin Blackwell that season, having succeeded Bryan Robson in 2008. Halford has questioned whether the team would have advanced automatically under a different manager.
“I won’t speak poorly of Blackwell because he brought me to the team and assigned me to the strike position, which I really enjoyed, but at the same time, we would have won the league if we had a manager like Neil Warnock,” the man stated.
“I believe Blackwell would agree that he wasn’t the best in terms of tactical awareness.
“He told us that we didn’t run hard enough or far enough after every game we lost that season, and that if we run far enough and outwork the opposition, we will always win.
“But again we still managed to get to the play-off final, we still should have done the job no matter what and we had the players to do it.”
It’s possible that Warnock’s hiring of Blackwell as his assistant at Queens Park Rangers, Cardiff City, and Crystal Palace supported Halford’s argument that having him as the team’s star player didn’t always work in their favor.
However, Blackwell was able to separate Sheffield United from the Premier League by one game, and as his team clearly demonstrated in 2009, players can sometimes be overcome by the moment.
Even though the club would have known they would be in a relegation battle, that would have been the reason Matt Taylor was fired.
When he was appointed, the club showed him a great deal of confidence and offered him a four-year contract, which he honored by keeping the team afloat. For this reason, some fans may have been surprised to see him fired.
Does Matt Taylor think Rotherham United has treated him unfairly?
Given his lengthy contract and limited opportunity for improvement this season, Taylor likely has grounds to be upset about his dismissal.
“It is an interesting one because if you go back to the previous manager Paul Warne who was promoted three times to that division (the Championship) and relegated twice and on the back of that,” said Phil Brown, the former manager of Hull City, in an interview with Football Daily 72+.
“Let’s say that as a manager, the experience of moving up from the first division to the Championship is what makes him get the Derby County job.
“I believe that Matty Taylor has been extremely unlucky. They’ve been a bit of a yo-yo club; sure, you want stability, but I always recall the yo-yo period we had at Bolton in the 1990s; we were promoted to the Premier League three times, but the focus was always on surviving and moving up to the next level.”
Was Taylor fired for his playing style or for the results?
Taylor had some successful results prior to that, most notably the 2-2 draw with title rivals Ipswich Town, but his final game for Rotherham was a 5-0 loss against Watford, which would not have helped his chances of keeping the position.
Brown thinks there have been some unusual firings thus far this season because he believes Taylor’s style of play had a role.
“I believe Matty is a good manager and coach,” he remarked. He’s had some experience, but not much. That five seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I believe the outcome finally got him this time.
“To what extent does playing football in the modern era depend on your style of play? Even if you lose, five to zero, are you still using the proper technique?
“Are the owners seeing a way forward? If not, you may occasionally experience an odd dismissal—there have been one or two this year.
“Gillingham when they sacked Neil Harris, Chopper, when they sacked Chopper it was out of the blue and you think to yourself is it just about style now, style over substance and it seems to be moving that way.”
