Oliver Norwood details key reason behind Sheffield United’s slow start to 2021/22 campaign | OneFootball

Oliver Norwood believes a disrupted pre-season proved to be Sheffield United’s downfall in the early stages of this term, speaking candidly about his side’s struggles to The Star after their resurgence under Paul Heckingbottom.

The Blades failed to win any of their opening five league games of the campaign before the first international break of 2021/22, leaving them 23rd in the league table and shell-shocked after previously being tipped as a promotion favourite alongside the likes of AFC Bournemouth, Fulham and West Bromwich Albion.

Their form improved after the international break with the additions of current key man Morgan Gibbs-White, Robin Olsen and Conor Hourihane as they went unbeaten in their following four.

However, they struggled to adapt to ex-manager Slavisa Jokanovic’s 4-2-3-1 system for much of his tenure at Bramall Lane, finally moving back to utilising three centre-back after the most recent international interval, though it proved to be too late for the Serbian who was relieved of his duties late last month and succeeded by Heckingbottom.

At the time of the 53-year-old’s departure, the South Yorkshire outfit found themselves in 16th place, having won just 23 points from their opening 19 league matches of the season.

Going unbeaten in their last four and winning ten points from a possible 12 though, United will be looking to leave their early-season struggles in the past.

But one man who has looked back is Northern Ireland international Norwood, who opened up to the Sheffield Star on why his team made such a poor start despite the calibre of their squad after only being relegated from the Premier League this year.

The 30-year-old said: “Without blaming things, we had a disrupted pre-season.

“We had two weeks off in the middle of pre-season, the team we played in Spain from Gibraltar, I think we would have been better off playing my mate’s team up the park. There wasn’t much work done in that one.

“We came back, played Doncaster and that was it, off you go. So the first four or five games were more or less trying to find the way we wanted to play and it took us a while to get going and for one reason or another it didn’t work out.

“Football moves on quickly, managers move on, players move on and the ones that hang around are the ones that the manager wants here. It’s football, it’s life and you move on quickly.”

The Verdict

This is a refreshingly honest perspective of things and provides an interesting insight into why they got off to such an underwhelming start to their campaign.

They may have lost their goalkeeper and failed to bring in any recruits by the time the season was underway, but still, they should have done much better under a manager with fresh ideas that had guided Watford and Fulham to the Premier League in the past.

In fairness to Jokanovic, he probably should have been given more time and more backing to get things right, because they left their incoming transfer business until the last minute in the previous window and that was always going to be disadvantageous to the Blades as they looked to reset following their relegation.

Then again, their pre-season period also seemed to be a hindrance and considering the formation and style of play switch as the club transitioned from ex-caretaker boss Heckingbottom and Jokanovic, this was always going to be crucial in their quest to get off to a quick start.

This is something they will need to learn from when the summer comes along, regardless of which league they will be in next season.