Sheffield United and Aston Villa - a tale of two promoted sides

At the start of the season, Sheffield United were (foolishly) labelled as dead certainties for relegation. A summer of pinpointed recruitment - mainly from the Championship - and a horribly misinformed view that they would be a ‘hoofball’ side saw to this. Who can forget Danny Mills’ labelling them as a “route one” side before the season had begun.

Aston Villa, meanwhile, were seen in a more optimistic light. They were assumed to have a good chance of survival after a lavish summer spend of over £140 million. Their recruitment spanned Premier League regulars to top Championship targets, as well as the pillaging of two players from Club Brugge. In fact, it’s quite hard to neatly sum up the scale and range of their recruitment in a sentence or two.

On Wednesday, the Blades travel to an empty Villa Park to restart the season. Both sides are not in the positions expected of them.

Sheffield United have been superb, and surpassed the expectations of even the most rose tinted of fans to put themselves in contention for a European spot. Villa have struggled massively, and sit in the relegation zone. While their survival was never a given, the extent to which they have struggled comes at a contrast to the money they spent over summer.

Villa have conceded the most goals in the Premier League and kept the fewest clean sheets, although have scored more than Sheffield United. But their leaky defence and inconsistency has proved costly for the Villains.

The caveat of injuries must be considered, though, when it comes to Villa. A bad run of form in December was followed by an injury to John McGinn late in the month, before both Tom Heaton and Wesley Moraes were injured New Year’s Day. Since then Villa have played seven, won one, drawn one and lost five. It’s this run which has seen the Villains go from having a good chance of staying in the division, to being in serious danger of relegation.

Sheffield United are at the other end of the scale, having conceded the second fewest goals in the league behind leaders Liverpool. They have an extremely settled defence, with the same back three of Chris Basham, John Egan and Jack O’Connell ever present as it was last season when the Blades conceded the joint fewest goals in the Championship.

To further compound their contrast with Villa, they have suffered very few injury problems.

There have been minor tweaks to the Blades’ fascinating tactical system - such as withdrawing a player from the number 10 role to make a three man central midfield - and a couple of changes in personnel, but this United side is remarkably similar to last season.

And on that tactical system - it’s a piece of brilliance and ingenuity from Chris Wilder and Alan Knill that is able to continually keep Premier League teams on their toes. Overlapping centre backs were seen as foolhardy in the Premier League, but the Blades are proving their doubters to be the fools.

But this isn’t to say Villa under Dean Smith have been completely wayward in their approach to building a team. Positions such as centre forward, defensive midfield and goalkeeper were targeted for improvement. Wesley and Heaton came in up front and in goal, with Marvelous Nakamba and Douglas Luiz coming into midfield.

But while there’s been a positional coherency their player acquisition, the change in the Villa starting eleven has been vast. There have been changes up front, on the wing, in midfield, in goal, in central defence and at left back.

While still maintaining a decent enough attacking output - with Jack Grealish starring - Villa can be messy and rolled over too easily. They have the joint most errors leading to goals in the Premier League with 10, and have allowed the most opposition deep completions (passes within 20 metres of their own goal) in the league.

Sheffield United’s success ahead of Villa is a victory for continuity, togetherness and organisation. Not to mention shrewd recruitment over a number of years by the Blades, innovative tactics and players of underrated quality such as David McGoldrick.

Villa look likely to be relegated, while the Sheffield United could possibly claim a Champions League place.