Duffers' Diaries: Sheffield United's Chris Wilder U-turn shows clubs should be careful what they wish for

But that’s precisely what’s happened at Sheffield United this week with Chris Wilder returning for a third spell as manager, just three months after being sacked by the same club and for the second time in his career.

Managers returning to the clubs that have previously sacked them – or at least didn’t offer them a new contract – isn’t a new phenomenon. You can look at the past examples of coaches such as Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool, Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace and David Moyes at West Ham in terms of those who have returned for second spells having left in varying circumstances the first time round.

But for a manager to walk back into a job he’d been ousted from just three months before can’t have too much in the way of precedent.

In fairness to the American owners at Sheffield United, COH Sports, they’ve devoured a considerable amount of humble pie and realised their mistake. It made a refreshing change in the modern day world of football

You can potentially understand why Wilder was sacked given he didn’t deliver on the brief of returning the club to the Premier League, but there was very little to suggest he couldn’t do it this time around.

Both sides promoted automatically last season accumulated 100 points, after all, and United came mightily close to joining them having accumulated 90 points in the regular season before losing out in the play-off final to a stoppage time goal, having initially been 14 minutes from the Premier League when 1-0 up late in the game.

Wilder’s summer replacement, Rubén Sellés, was up against it from the start. Often when a new coach is installed it’s because the previous one didn’t do a great job and it’s not as hard to pick things up and win people over quickly, but that wasn’t really the case here.

So Sellés would have been told it was promotion or back to the job centre, and six defeats out of six to start the season perhaps fairly suggested that things simply hadn’t clicked, nor were likely to quickly enough to mount a challenge, so off he went.

Wilder’s love for the club undoubtedly played a part in him returning. He’s a United fan, played for the club at the start of his career and had managed them twice before, so given it’s somewhere he’s already so loved it wouldn’t have been a hard decision for him to make, even had there been any animosity with the owners surrounding his departure in the first place.

Whether he’s been told that promotion is now a must this season is unclear but the fact he’s been given a two-year deal suggests that should the task already be too big, he’ll get another crack at it with a clean slate next season, presumably unless this campaign becomes something of a horror show to the point where he’s again shown the door.

Either way, United’s owners will be hoping he can have a similar impact to in his previous spells. Whether Wilder will revert back to the tactics that worked so well before or whether he takes a ‘damage limitation’ approach initially remains to be seen, but settling in won’t be a problem and his knowledge of most of the current squad will no doubt make it feel like he’s never been away, which let’s face it, in football terms he pretty much hasn’t.

The whole episode was, as mentioned above, a refreshing change. Often, supporters cry out for successful former managers to return when things go wrong with the most recent incumbent – Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham is one example that comes to mind – but those demands are often more complicated, not shared by the board, or not viable.

Even when, with the benefit of hindsight, bad decisions are made, heads have to overrule hearts when it comes to managerial appointments.

But in Wilder’s case, head and heart together prevailed all round and whilst I’m sure there are some Blades fans who might have preferred another fresh approach and who may be keen to highlight the downfalls that have harmed Wilder in the past, a lot will be delighted with the ‘safe’ option of getting a reliable piece of the Sheffield United furniture back out of the loft.