'The end of the season can't come soon enough'

Chris Wilder assumed a near-impossible task when he was reappointed as boss last year, with the club lurching towards inevitable relegation.

However, after a fourth straight home game where Sheffield United have conceded five or more goals, it's fair to ask a few questions of the manager.

Neither Wilder nor Paul Heckingbottom are wholly responsible for the mess of this season - that falls squarely on our woeful summer business - but at the same time, fans deserve better than what we’re paying to witness.

As with the end of Heckingbottom's tenure, early sparks of organisation and competitiveness have evaporated into a series of mismatches rarely - if ever - witnessed in the history of English league football.

Like Heckingbottom, Wilder may not have a strong hand of cards to play - but he's still playing them badly.

We saw Luton Town's Alfie Doughty obliterate an out-of-position Auston Trusty down our left on Boxing Day - yet Wilder thought that repeating the tactic against Bukayo Saka would yield positive results. It did not.

We've also gone back to the dog days of Heckingbottom where the team would be set up ultra-defensively - and sit ultra-deep - yet still allow chance after chance and unfathomable amounts of space to the opposition.

Yes, Arsenal are an elite side – but they’re also the fourth team in a row to absolutely dismantle us on our home patch.

There doesn’t seem to be any plan for how we intend to play, with or without the ball. The players are unquestionably not cut out for this league – but a manager's job is to mould a team into more than the sum of its parts.

Wilder's United - like Heckingbottom's before him - look like a rabble and reflect the stagnant malaise that is our ownership situation.

The end of the season can’t come soon enough.

Ben Meakin can be found on BladesPod