SUFC News: How Selles plans to turn around United after “really bad week”
He readily admitted that, if he told a Sheffield United supporter to keep calm and show patience amid their early-season teething troubles, the fan would probably tell him to “f*** off.” But that won’t deter Ruben Selles from trusting his process despite a tough start to life at Bramall Lane.
Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Swansea City saw the Spaniard’s wait for a first win as United boss continue, after 4-1 and 2-1 losses to Bristol City and Birmingham City respectively. All three games have been different; United impressive in spells but wide open in the first, disjointed in the second after making 10 changes and utterly toothless in the most recent.
The Blades fans who made the long journey to South Wales watched their side not even muster a single shot on target throughout the afternoon, as Ronald’s second half goal gave the home side victory that could have been more comprehensive if they were more clinical with their chances.
Selles tweaked his system to make United more solid in midfield but that came at the expense of their attacking impetus, with key man Gus Hamer touching the ball just 30 times in the entire game and looking more and more frustrated as it went on.
This weekend’s home clash with Millwall offers another chance for Selles to break his duck but he is acutely aware already that patience is beginning to run thin. “I cannot tell them what to do, or how to do it,” he admitted when asked about a general lack of patience from supporters in football.
“We lost the first three games, it has been a really bad week. We need to find our platform, but we also know how football works and the nature of it. I can ask them to be calm but they are probably going to tell me to f*** off, or something like that.
“I just say we are going to be honest, we are going to work hard, we are going to persist in what we do and we are going to give it everything we have inside. At some point the situation will turn and we will start to win football matches. That’s as much as I can say, and everyone is free to feel what they are going to feel.”
Selles must tweak his tactics further in a bid to arrest his side’s early-season slump, and find a way to get the best out of a forward line containing the likes of Hamer, Tyrese Campbell, Louie Barry and Callum O’Hare while also keeping the door shut at the other end.
But there is little prospect of wholesale changes. Asked how he plans to find the solution to his side’s problems, Selles said: “First of all, remaining calm in the things we do. For me, it would be very easy now to say we need to change the team but I don’t think that’s the reality. We don’t need to use the excuse of the transfer window.
“We were competitive enough and we should be competitive enough to win the game last week and the game today. That is a little bit of everything. We need to work better in training, trying to be more balanced.
“Trying to be more aggressive when we are defending and obviously trying to put the players in the best position we can put them, to play with a freedom that they want to play with. With the start to the season not being the one we wanted, there is a little bit more pressure and sometimes that pressure you can feel it yourself or in your teammates.
“So now it’s about remaining calm, analysing the situation as it is, not going too emotional and trying to find the platform for us to be competitive.”
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