Lack of faith has cost Sheffield clubs – Sue Smith Yorkshire News

Maybe it’s my love for the homeless, but I’m rooting for them to make a great escape from championship relegation and I hope that the midweek victory over Blackburn Rovers restores some of the belief that they and their neighbors obviously lacked about. Sheffield this season.

It would be terrible if his six-point deduction for violating financial fair play was the difference between the Owls going down and standing.

They were 83 minutes ahead last Saturday in a game I covered for Sky Sports. In every update from that time, I felt like they were in control.

I’m sure the players are aware of all the times they have wasted advantage and it would have been in the back of their minds that they were going to be punished if they didn’t score a second goal.

Although Bristol City did not have much of a threat after a man was sent off after 20 minutes, they still had players who can do something.

Barry Bannan failed to score a penalty for the first time in his club career and Tyreeq Bakinson scored the equalizer in the 87th minute.

When I covered them again on Tuesday, I felt like they took that in the first 20 minutes because they were flat. Eventually they got going, they were the best team and they won, but at 1-0 Blackburn had a very good chance when John Buckley played one-on-one with Keiren Westwood and I thought, ‘The same thing is going to happen here, them.’ one goal and lose two points. “

Fortunately for them, Westwood saved and held out for a win that will hopefully help them today against Middlesbrough.

My only relegation was with Doncaster Belles when we didn’t meet the criteria for the Women’s Super League, but I played for an England team that had a mental block against Germany. We just couldn’t beat them.

We worked closely with a psychologist before Euro 2009, where we faced them in the final. We talked a lot about how we should believe we were good enough and I felt like it was the first time we went out onto the field thinking we could beat them. We heard that they already had a party planned for their victory and that got them excited.

But all of our coping strategies went out the window as soon as we fell behind, and we lost.

You wonder if owls have a mental block when they are ahead in games but cannot kill them.

It seems there was a city-wide lack of faith in Sheffield United all season long. You could see it last Saturday when they had the opportunity to go up front through Enda Stevens but couldn’t take advantage of it, and the Lobos went the other end and scored the only goal of the game.

Perhaps if they had started the season stronger, the Blades would never have had a negative mindset.

Last season, they got off to a good start, winning nine games by a one-goal margin. This time they have lost 16 for the odd goal.

Even though the emotions you are going through on Wednesday right now are not what you want to experience, as soccer fans we thrive on the hope or belief that you can defy the odds.

When I was a young Everton fan I remember listening to the last game of the 1993-94 season on the radio with my dad and celebrating like we had won the league when we came 2-0 down to beat Wimbledon 3-2 and keep our Premier League Venue.

From the position they are in now, the celebrations will be massive from Wednesday fans if they somehow stay awake. A lot has gone against them: the point deduction, all the coach changes, injuries, Covid-19 hitting the team in the new year, coach Darren Moore contracted it this month and then suffered pneumonia upon his return.

Good or bad, emotions are the reason we love football.

When the teams go down, you see the fans cry, but going through those experiences makes the good times sweeter, as it will be for Hull City if they secure promotion to the Championship in Lincoln City this afternoon.

There were many things about the separatist European league that didn’t sit well with me, but the idea of ​​not relegating certain teams, turning games into glorified exhibition matches, was perhaps the greatest.