'Why change the manager?'

Ben Meakin, BladesPod

The pressure is mounting on manager Paul Heckingbottom, but Sheffield United have approached promotion in such a counterintuitive way that I wonder if the club will retain him as boss regardless of how the next few weeks go.

Defeat by Bournemouth leaves the Blades seven points behind the Cherries. Given that it's taken us 13 games to cobble together five points, that already looks like a near-insurmountable gap to a supposed relegation rival.

It’s fair to say that Heckingbottom has been dealt a bad hand this season with the players who left, the ones who’ve been brought in (although he had at least some say in that) and the injuries. He also clearly didn’t tell Wes Foderingham to gift Bournemouth a second goal, or for Luke Thomas to inexplicably leave a drop-ball for the Cherries to counter and score from. But both errors are typical of a poorly drilled side lacking clarity of thought.

However, it’s also fair to expect more out of the team than the lifeless, hopeless performances we’ve sat through for most of the season so far. Persisting with the Norwood-Souza axis of uncreativity is one thing, but having two shots in the first half against Bournemouth – both snapshots from distance – is pathetic. Sadly, it’s also not an outlier for us this season.

Rightly or wrongly, I’m sure the vast majority of other clubs would have changed manager by now. However, United have approached this season with such a prioritisation of off-field matters (allegedly with a view to selling the club) that I can foresee the hierarchy choosing to just ride out the rest of the campaign with Heckingbottom rather than fork out for a change.

Oddly, I can see the logic in such an approach. If this season is a lost cause anyway, why change manager when the best-case scenario is probably a 19th-place finish? It might well be better to spend the next seven months getting things lined up for next season - whether that’s with Heckingbottom or a new manager.

Unfortunately, though, that is likely to mean another 25 games of pain for fans who’ve had very little to smile about since promotion was clinched last spring.

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