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It is only when Chris Wilder casts his eye over the Sky Bet Championship table that you truly understand how brutally competitive the division is. I have just asked the Middlesbrough manager about the desire of those connected to the club to return to the Premier League and whether he is under pressure to deliver instant promotion.
“I’m looking at the Championship table and Reading have been in there, Cardiff have been in there, Hull, Birmingham, Swansea, Sheff United, Forest, Stoke, Huddersfield, West Brom, Middlesbrough...”
He only stops reeling off clubs who have known Premier League status because we start laughing at the seemingly endless list. It once felt as though just a handful of Championship teams felt they truly belonged among the elite but now they all have a story to tell and a reason to be promoted.
“More than three quarters have been in the Premier League,” he says. “They’ll all have that ambition.”
Still, the Middlesbrough fans may think this is their year given the appointment of Wilder in November. The 54-year-old Yorkshireman guided Sheffield United through the divisions, winning League One with a club record 100 points in his first season, and they then won promotion to the Premier League in 2019. His reputation for success at a blistering pace continues and he won manager of the month for December and the club sit seventh in the Championship before tonight’s game away to Blackburn Rovers, managed by Tony Mowbray, veteran of nearly 350 games for Middlesbrough during his playing days.
“Well, they appointed me to win football matches and if you win 26, 27 then you’ve got an opportunity to get out of this division. It’s simple, we’ve got to win games and we don’t earn the right because we’ve got 23, 24, 25,000 supporters and hopefully getting more as the season goes on. We’ve got a fabulous training ground and a good owner [Steve Gibson], but you’ve got to earn the right. We’ve got a director of football [Kieran Scott] to put in longer-term plans and an owner who is ambitious but not just about what happens this season.
“Our ambition is to get in the mix. Any among the top 12 or 13 could go on a run and be in with a chance. But we’re positive, the supporters are positive.”
Wilder’s side are seventh in the Championship and can move into the play-off places with victory over Blackburn
It feels like a very good fit. Wilder has kept his home in Sheffield but spends most of each week living near the Middlesbrough training ground.
“The area is very similar to the one I was brought up in, working class people who love their football,” he says. “If you give them everything then they give that back.”
He is, though, yet to try the region’s infamous Parmo dish of breaded chicken with a cheesy topping. “I’ve heard a lot about it,” he says. “Maybe at the end of the season.”
A defining couple of weeks lie ahead for Wilder. Tough games beckon after Blackburn including Coventry City at home on Saturday before a fourth-round FA Cup tie at Old Trafford. I wonder if it feels like a luxury having an empty week and then weekend before a Monday night game, but “luxury” is not really a Wilder sort of word and he almost snorts in derision.
That he had eight months out of the game after parting ways with Sheffield United last March with the team bottom of the Premier League also seems out of character — and he agrees. “I’ve worked constantly for 20 years and am battle hardened,” he says, “but I wanted to make sure the next club I joined was the right one, the right fit on the back of a disappointing end to leaving Sheffield United. I didn’t want to be out of work, I owned the disappointing second period in the Premier League. I don’t think, ‘Oh, I’ll have a break in three years’ time.’”
Wilder is honest about the fact that some of the jobs that interested him were out of his reach and that he turned down several clubs that wanted him. “There were a few inquiries,” he says. “I turned down opportunities to speak to a few clubs and I was interested in a couple of opportunities. I wanted to work at the highest level, and I put the Championship as the highest level. The amount of people who want to work at that top end is huge. There were one or two me and my agent put myself forward for that didn’t materialise. I’m not afraid or embarrassed to say that. I understand how competitive it is.”
He still enjoys watching the Premier League and wants to learn from its tactical developments. “It still looks as tough as it was when we were in it for two years,” he says. “It’s a brilliant division to be in.
Matt Crooks and Marcus Tavernier have been central to the side’s revival under Wilder
“Wolves have been fabulous, and Brighton are going great; Graham Potter is a fabulous manager. Brentford are riding the wave and I have a huge amount of respect for David Moyes.”
The Championship has not changed since he was last there either. “We played Reading last Saturday and the press, the media, noted that they had just got smashed by seven and knocked out of the FA Cup but it was a really tough afternoon for us, needing to score two in the last five minutes,” Wilder says. “That tells me what the Championship is about. It’s a level playing field, no one is running away with it.
“Maybe I am more of a gambler in the Championship. I used to wonder when I watched the Premier League and saw a club outside the top eight and saw them celebrate a point and then I got there, and I understood it. A point is a decent result. There is a little bit more freedom in the Championship.
“Nothing has changed in the way I want to set my teams up, I want them to be hard working, aggressive and I want us to play on the front foot and have a structure in and out of possession. Are we there yet? No. Are we heading in the right direction? I believe so. I’m smiling just now, but there is still work to be done getting it to how I want it to look.”
Gibson has a reputation for being one of the game’s nicer chairmen. Is that true?
“I wouldn’t think he’d like to be called nice,” Wilder says. “I think he’d like to be respected in terms of the work he does and how honest and forthright he is and how up front. He gives his manager the opportunity to manage and to turn things around if needed. His reputation goes before him in terms of the people who have worked for him, respected managers such as Steve McClaren and Gareth Southgate.”
Wilder could be seen in the stands when Manchester United defeated Aston Villa in the third round of the Cup. “We’ll do our analysis,” he says. “We want to go deep into the competition, so you always think a home draw against a lower ranked team is the best way and if you don’t get that then you are looking at pulling one of the big boys out away from home. It ticks a lot of boxes for us.
Balogun, on loan from Arsenal, is among the new faces to join Wilder’s side this month
“On the pitch it’s a great challenge for the players in arguably the best arena in European football — 75,000 people there and live on TV on a Friday night. Financially, it’s a great one for us, to get us through this transfer window. We want to turn up and do well and make the game as competitive as it possibly could be.
“Against United you need a little bit of luck, and your ’keeper has to make great saves and you have to take the minimal opportunities you get.
“There’s no downside to the game. Whether it’s a carrot on the horizon for the players to play at Old Trafford or not, the team is about being consistent and we’re not frightened to change things.”
Wilder has this month signed Aaron Connolly on loan from Brighton & Hove Albion, Folarin Balogun on loan from Arsenal and bought Riley McGree, the Australia international, and the midfielder Caolan Boyd-Munce from Birmingham City. “We brought in players in the window who will make their mark on the group,” Wilder says. “January is a good window in that new faces raise the bar. We keep evolving. Good players embrace good players coming into the group to make them stronger.”
The first six years of his career as a full back was spent at Bramall Lane and Wilder was manager there for five years that were so successful, they will for ever be known as the Wilder era.
The parting of the ways felt sorrowful even to outsiders but Wilder believes the locals know his story, how he was a ballboy, that he shouted from the stands as a supporter.
“I’ve been supporting the team since the late Seventies and my family as well,” he says. “I still live in the city, and they know my background and my affinity for the club.”
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