A lot can change in 13 years. People come and go, relationships are formed and broken, film genres go in and out of popularity (unless your superhero films in which case, the cycle never stops...) and so on and so on. But every so often you find something that doesn't change. For Sheffield United on Monday we found our thing that hasn't changed since the last time we faced Arsenal. Young and French strikers that haven't been effective elsewhere have a knack of scoring against The Gunners. You may have heard already but OH MY GOODNESS SHEFFIELD UNITED BEAT ARSENAL THIS IS BRILLIANT. So, what else happened in this match exactly?
Changes were afoot for The Blades on Monday with David McGoldrick and Lys Mousset coming in for Callum Robinson and Oli McBurnie. Robinson was left out of the matchday squad, possibly due to a slight injury, but more McBurnie made the bench. Now, normally this wouldn't be a shocking thing to see but when said player was in court earlier on in the day in regards to answering charges of drink driving you can imagine it being a little strange to see him involved so quickly. Arsenal made one change to the team that beat Bournemouth before the international break with Joe Willock coming in for Daniel Ceballos. The light show commenced and you could hear the crowd go mild as someone switched the floodlights on and off in time to some music. It was pretty lacklustre against Sunderland, it hasn't improved. Oh well, the teams are out, lets play some football! The Blades started well and managed to press Arsenal into making some mistakes. The Gunners did manage to fashion the first real chance of the game though thanks to a lightning fast counter attack move that saw Nicolas Pepe somehow shank a simple tap in out for a United throw in. United heeded the warning and after a cracking corner from Norwood, O'Connell cushioned a header into the feet of the unmarked Mousset with Mousse managing to turn the ball home. Bedlam ensued and The Blades were leading! But soon after Arsenal broke away again and it looked like Saka had been brought down by Egan. Mike Dean blew his whistle and... He penalised Saka for simulation and the Blades let out huge sighs of relief. However, apart from a Xhaka shot that Henderson saved comfortably, United managed to see out Arsenal to half time. Bramall Lane applauded the team off. 45 minutes to go, history seemed to be repeating itself... Second half and Arsenal were probing for an equaliser early doors but United managed to hold them to a few very low quality chances. After absorbing pressure, The Blades broke away and almost got a second after some delicate work from McGoldrick, Norwood and Lundstram saw John Fleck hammer a shot towards Leno's goal that pummelled the side netting. That wasn't the only time a Fleck howitzer caused the Arsenal number one trouble with Leno nearly allowing McGoldrick an opportunity after spilling a long shot from the Scotsman. Arsenal threw numbers forward again and almost got an equaliser thanks to a curling effort from Pepe that kept Henderson honest. Apart from that effort though, Arsenal didn't really have a chance to have anything too clear cut and that is largely thanks to the heroic efforts of our rear-guard. Baldock, Basham, Egan, O'Connell and Stevens were absolutely brilliant last night and have been all season. They are continuously proving themselves to be Premier League standard players and it is heartening to see these guys stake their claim in a division that many said they weren't equipped for. As the clock ticked down and time ran out for Arsenal the fans began to get louder and louder and when the final whistle blew, a roar of pure ecstasy and euphoria broke out around the stadium. We did it. Our boys, who many said were just in this league to prop up the numbers, beat an Arsenal team that got to a European cup final last season. This was brilliant. These are the days when you are proudest to call yourself a Blade. Going into environments where we are unfancied, where we are expected to lose and come out of it proving everybody wrong. It's a hallmark of the Wilder era and long may that continue. It's a special time to be a Blade. Next up is West Ham, that should be fun shouldn't it?
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It's been a while since we last played at The Lane. When we kick off, it will have been two weeks and two days since we last played a home game. That's a long time in football, so what's happened in Bladesworld (now THERE is a good theme park name) since our loss to Liverpool?
Watford was the venue for our next Premier League clash and it's fair to say that The Hornets have had a bit of a hangover since their FA Cup final loss to Man City (they even lost 8-0 to them a few weeks before we rolled into town). It's probably the first game since we came back up that we were expected to win so did we? No. No we didn't. In fact, if it wasn't for the heroics of Dean Henderson we would have probably ended up losing this game 2-0. Hendo made two incredible saves that more than made up for his costly error against Liverpool and was rewarded with a call up to the England national squad! First of all, big congratulations to Dean, it's been a long time coming in all honesty and hopefully this is the first of many call ups! Whilst we're on the subject of international call ups, many other Blades players were out and about representing their respective nations during the break. John Fleck made his long awaited debut for Scotland. Callum Robinson, Enda Stevens and John Egan represented Ireland with Egan winning man of the match in The Shamrock's clash with Georgia. Mo Besic was also away representing Bosnia so well done lads, you've done yourself and the club proud. Now then, onto the Arsenal. Arsenal are an interesting proposition of a team. At times, they can be pretty average and can be liable to throw away results in matches they are expected to win. In others, they can be almost unstoppable with a team that is full to the brim with world class talent. In the past five matches The Gunners have won four and drew one with results against Nottingham Forest and Standard Liege producing nine goals with none conceded. The other side of this coin however is the league. Although they have beaten Aston Villa and Bournemouth, they haven't beaten them convincingly with the result against Villa only coming thanks to two late goals from Calum Chambers and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. The victory against Bournemouth was also far from easy with Arsenal only having two shots on target all game, the same as their opponents. In between these two victories was a draw with an Man United team that have been far from convincing this season. However, despite the way that they are winning Arsenal seem to be able to know how to get the job done and find wins when a draw or loss seems inevitable. So who are the danger men for the Gunnarsarus worshippers? (Have you seen that mascot?) The obvious answer to the question is Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabonese hitman has carried on his rich vein of goalscoring since his move from Dortmund in January 2018, getting 39 goals in 57 games and so far this season he's got 7 in 8. His pace is frightening so Egan, Bash and Jack will need to be on top form to keep him quiet. Alongside Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette could be coming back from his injury and that's another headache for the United backline to think about. Much like his strike partner, Lacazette has taken to the Premier League like a duck to water with 29 goals in 70 games and is another player who is pretty nippy. I've not even had to mention club record signing Nicolas Pepe yet and he's another one who, you guessed it, is nippy. I hope our backline have been given Sonic shoes that make them quicker because they will probably need them. How does this play out then? Well, I think it all depends on keeping the potent strikers of Arsenal quiet. If we can do that, we have a good chance of catching them on the counter because as much as David Luiz has achieved in his career, he's a bit of a bomb scare at the back and if we can exploit his defensive frailties, we could get some chances to score. It's a big match Blades, let's get behind the boys and cheer them on to victory. Until next ti- hold on, it's a night match isn't it? Does... Does that mean the light show is going to be back? OH FOR GODS SAKE! This isn't necessarily all about Sheffield United, but they do play a massive part in the story I'm about to tell so I think this is the best place to put this post. I've never really spoken about my personal struggles with mental health before, I think I just brush it off as something that happened a couple of years ago and that it doesn't affect me anymore because I'm doing something that I enjoy and keeps me occupied. But the fact of the matter is that it's still there. It still gnaws away at me every so often. I still doubt and second guess myself on a pretty regular basis and that's because I never got/get help with what I'm dealing with. I'm feeling a lot better than I was a couple of years ago thankfully and that's why I'm writing this, I want to share my story.
So a couple of years ago I was in college and up until then I was pretty carefree and doing pretty well. I was doing well in classes and I had friends that I thought I could turn to if I ever needed anything. Everything was great. Even Sheffield United were doing great. Then everything took a turn for the worst. It turns out those 'friends' had been talking about me in a group chat that I wasn't a part of and they said something that really affected me. It also didn't help that at the exact same time I began to become disillusioned with the college. Teachers were getting my name wrong in classes and some just weren't turning up at all, couple that with the fact that my sister was really struggling with secondary school, it wasn't a great time. All of a sudden I stopped going to college on Thursdays. I had Maths classes in the morning because I was resitting my GCSE but I just stopped. I did at first email in to say I wasn't coming in but then I'd just pretend I overlaid or that I was too sick to email the teacher. In reality I would just lay in my bed and watch my phone's clock slowly pass by the time I was supposed to be in college. I stopped going to my A Level classes in the afternoon soon after that, I just couldn't face a teacher who didn't really seem to know my name. It was such a small thing, but I took it so personally. So at this point, I only had one friend who I knew I could count on, I didn't really get out of the house anymore and I didn't talk to my family about what was happening. My Mum was dealing with what my sister was going through and I could see she was stressed out all the time, I didn't want to further burden her so I kept quiet and just kept on struggling. During this period there was one bright light that kept me going and that was Sheffield United. Whilst I was at my lowest ebb, United were soaring. Chris Wilder was bringing pride back to a team that had seemingly lost all of it the season before and we were absolutely destroying League One. Sheffield United became the thing that I looked forward to. When Saturday came, I knew I could go to Bramall Lane and forget all my problems for a while and watch 11 guys run through brick walls for the club that I adore. But then the weekend ended and it was back to worrying and being so alone. By the end of my first year of college I was ready to leave. I just wanted to get away. I'd talked it over with my form tutor and it looked like I'd be going to Barnsley College. But that didn't happen and just like that I was back at Hillsborough. I was still very anxious about going back but something changed. I think the real change was in my Sociology class, the first year was a mess for Sociology and it continued into the second year. Slowly but surely, it was almost like us as a class bonded over our mutual dislike of what was happening in Sociology. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was part of something that mattered. We all hated what was happening with our class and that brought us closer together. It may have been a pain to learn in but bloody hell I loved going in there for the people. Everyone was genuinely lovely and I hope they've all gone on to have success in whatever they've chosen to do because every one of them deserved success. Anyway, at the end of the college year I got my results and... oh boy were they bad. I got a D, an E, and a U. I remember calling up clearing that same day in blind hope that something might come up for Uni. Nothing did. And just like that, for the first time in my life I was rudderless. I didn't have education to keep me occupied, I had nothing. Whilst everyone was out at Uni, I was going to staring down the barrel of the abyss. Where do I go now? I stared applying for jobs but no one ever got back to me. I applied for apprenticeships but they didn't get back to me either. I was falling back into that dark hole again. I felt worthless. I felt like no one wanted me and that I'd never get a job or have any future prospects. But then my mum told me about Sheffield Futures and a job opening they had for their Young Advisors post. I expressed my interest in the post and I got invited to taster session of what being a Young Advisor would entail. It all sounded so positive and then I was pencilled in for an interview. The interview happened and they said they'd get back to me in a couple of days. A couple of days came and I still hadn't had a call yet. I'd already started feeling awful because I thought I hadn't got it. I was going to have to go back to getting rejected all the time. Then I got a call, it was from my boss. She said I had the job! For the first time in a long time I was euphoric. They took me on! I'd done it! I was employed! From that day on, everything has become a lot better, I've met new people that are absolutely incredible and that are an absolute joy to work with, I've become confident in my abilities again, I feel almost whole again. There are still days when I feel awful and when I second guess myself and there are days when I feel like I've said the wrong thing to someone and that they won't want to speak to me again. But those days are only every so often now. But I still think about those days when it was really bad and when I thought that I'd never succeed at anything. I know that there are people out there who are struggling like I did and to those people who may feel like that I say please don't give up. You are loved, you are valued and that help is closer than you think. It will get better, I promise you that. |
AuthorHi my name is John and i will be giving my thoughts on the blades matches and all blades related news in this section Archives
November 2022
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