When Sheffield United host Bristol City in the televised 5.30pm kick-off on Saturday, they will do so with neither side sure exactly what to expect – both from each other and themselves.

Eighty-nine days will have passed by the time last season’s play-off semi-finalists meet again at Bramall Lane, but after Chris Wilder’s sacking and Liam Manning swapping west for east to join Norwich, there will be a new face patrolling each dugout in Ruben Selles and Gerhard Struber.

Both are coaches with experience in English football and beyond but how smooth are their transitions likely to be and what signs are there about how their styles will transmit to fresh surroundings?

Saturday 9th August 5:00pm


Kick off 5:30pm

Struber-ball breeding early optimism at Ashton Gate

It seemed odd to Bristol City outsiders that there wasn’t the level of elation around the club last season you would expect from a fanbase enjoying a generational season and a first play-off appearance in 17 years.

But now ex-boss Manning’s philosophy, forged through an apprenticeship within the City Football Group’s playbook, was not always a comfortable fit in the West Country.

The Robins rivalled the division’s top teams for passes in the final third, but without the individual personnel to deliver the same cutting edge. Games often felt stale as a result, despite territorial dominance.

Before a ball has even been kicked this season it is apparent just how markedly the style is changing. Struber has arrived at Ashton Gate having come through the ranks of another conglomerate in the Red Bull franchise. It’s not quite Pep vs Klopp but it is in that vain.

High-pressing and high-tempo, vertical football have been hallmarks of Struber’s style wherever he’s gone. If he stuck to those principles with a Barnsley side he inherited with nine points from 16 games, there should be no doubt he will do the same at Ashton Gate.

Like Manning, his Barnsley completed the fourth-most final-third passes in the 11 months he was there, but the style was unrecognisable. Struber’s side had the fourth-lowest passes per sequence – when they won the ball, their intention was not to keep it but to make something happen quickly.

That has been evident from from the Austrian’s early iteration of the Robins, especially in Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing of Real Valladolid, though Sheffield United will prove a much sterner test this weekend. Anis Mehmeti and Scott Twine both sat on the shoulder of the last man with new striker Emil Riis leading the line as a box player. There were more balls into the channels than any Manning game from memory.

It looks like Struber’s City will at least begin the season in a 3-4-3, using their wing-backs to stretch the play in possession and invite the two No 10s to either float in behind Riis or look to get in behind, in theory leaving opposition defences unsure whether to squeeze up or drop back.

Watch out for opposite wing-backs getting onto the end of crosses too – Ross McCrorie was twice on target in City’s win last weekend.

There are signs this has given Mehmeti in particular a new lease of life after the Albanian international provided both assists in a 2-0 win at Plymouth the week before, and was heavily involved in the final third against Valladolid. He started last season like a steam train before fading off since the turn of the year.

Without the ball things appear more of a work in progress. Struber’s high press has not yet been fully co-ordinated on the early evidence and it would take a brave game plan to go after a promotion favourite away from home at the best of times.

They looked concerningly ropey playing inside their own half last weekend, which given Selles’ own penchant for a high press could prove particularly painful when the Robins don’t look to move play forward quickly.

The absence of seven first-team players will not make City’s task any easier, but there are early signs that the energy of Struber-ball may already make the Robins a tricky opponent to pacify.
Ron Walker

Selles shift is a gamble by new United chiefs

If Sheffield United appeared a sure bet to repeat their top-two challenge under Wilder – a transitional squad ripe for an added shot of experience, a tweak here and there – a successive summer of upheaval has complicated August’s usual anticipation.

The mood spans a curious spectrum of uncertainty, scepticism and intrigue, thrill and trepidation of change.

Having contrived to lose a fifth play-off final after amassing 92 points, the scar tissue coarsening further, Leeds’ title win a year after their own Wembley agony offered a blueprint.

But Wilder’s new contract just month earlier, a public relations tap-in when the club appeared set for automatic promotion before an April collapse, always seemed precarious under new ownership. Short-term stability has been sacrificed for what American-based consortium COH Sports describe as a “new direction” underpinned by “innovative recruitment and analytic strategies” – an apparent focus on player development and trading.

In Selles, a former data analyst, they have a willing figurehead, but the decision is a gamble in the final year of parachute payments.

Wilder’s permeating influence, justified by the profound impact he has had at Bramall Lane, requires a collective psychological shift that only a strong start will accelerate.

United’s pragmatic, tentative style last season was arguably borne of circumstance that underscored a feeling of overachievement before May’s consequential failure: a points deduction, a double-figure exodus, youngsters and loanees finding their feet, key injuries to Harry Souttar and Oli Arblaster.

But the search for fluid attacking connections and discernible patterns of play proved a continued struggle. Tom Cannon, a headline January signing, Kieffer Moore – departed to Wrexham – and Tyrese Campbell scored a single goal between them in the final seven league games of last term.

The expectation, if pre-season’s limited clues are anything to go by, is that United will create more, score more, attack with greater abandon, even if there is a whiff of the kamikaze.

Selles has promised aggressive, vertical football, with intensity that Aston Villa loanee Louie Barry knows from time together at Hull: “He’ll put a rocket up my backside if he sees me jogging”.

The prospect of Barry and freshly-focused Andre Brooks driving at defenders, of imposing young striker Ryan Oné afforded more playing time, of Cannon potentially revived in a wide forward position is a promising one. Even AI-powered pick-up Ehjie Ukaki might spring the odd cameo surprise.

A commitment to ball recoveries high up the pitch, ironically echoing the tenacity that fuelled Wilder-ball 1.0, should see Callum O’Hare to the fore. The former Coventry player was used as a substitute in all three play-off games yet made more pressures than any other player in the Championship last season and surely has an elevated role to play.

But Selles’ style, favouring a high defensive line, currently looks prone to leaving United vulnerable in transition when the press fails and the units slacken. With Gus Hamer restored to a central playmaking position, a lot looks set to be asked of Braga loanee Dijbril Soumare, the replacement for Vini Souza as an athletic ball-winner.

With Anel Ahmedhodzic also sold this summer, United’s defence – already light – is in need of an aerially dominant centre-back. The squad as a whole is short on gnarl and nous, and though football’s transfer food chain means judgement should be saved until the close of the window, scrutiny will be heightened after such a high-stakes call.

Only time will tell whether a change can do United good. For now, fascinating – and significant – questions remain.
Kate Burlaga

Watch Sheffield United vs Bristol City live on Sky Sports Football from 5pm on Saturday; kick-off 5.30pm.