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Thursday 2 July 2020 18:47, UK
Chris Wilder broke from convention after Sheffield United were swept aside at Old Trafford.
The evening heat was draining and there were mitigating factors - three of a trusted back five missing - but after a stodgy performance against Aston Villa and an erratic one against Newcastle, Manchester United had been in the groove and a 3-0 scoreline might have been greater.
Two days off, Wilder told George Baldock and his team-mates. Clear your heads.
"It was really good," Baldock, speaking to Sky Sports ahead of Thursday's visit of Tottenham, says of the unexpected intervention. "The schedule hasn't been too kind to us; there's not been much recovery time between games.
"Our intensity in terms of the running stats has still been quite high but I think the manager felt we needed a mental break as much as a physical one.
"He's so good at that. He always gets a sense of how his players are feeling."
They were feeling ready, Baldock and his band of brothers, as Wilder likes to call them. Ready after lockdown sessions that several in the squad said were even tougher than normal. Ready to shoot for Europe.
Baldock can't quite put his finger on why three Premier League displays since the restart, instead, were so passive, so error-strewn, so un-Sheffield United.
But against Arsenal, minds fresh, there were familiar flickers. Dani Ceballos scored an injury-time winner to send his side to an FA Cup semi-final but the Blades outshot their opponents and expected goal data judged them more of a threat than in the three previous league games combined.
"The positive performance we put in was reflective of that breather, I think," Baldock says.
"It felt a lot more like us. We were a lot more aggressive. We got higher up the pitch, asked more questions. We've been disappointed we haven't been able to do that since the restart.
"We know we've been one or two yards off; loose balls, not winning quite enough battles, which is what we've built our season on. But the signs are there, everyone's in good spirits. I think once we get a positive result, a few more will follow."
The Blades wing-back has devoured the packed schedule of Premier League football and thinks the intensity elsewhere "hasn't seemed quite as high either" but there is no doubt that the absence of a boisterous Bramall Lane crowd, the Greasy Chip Butty heard from stadium speakers instead of well-oiled throats, is being keenly felt.
By the opposition, too, Baldock reveals.
"One of the Arsenal players said to me how different our stadium is without fans. I won't chuck him under the bus! But you must be quite thankful that you're coming to Bramall Lane without fans.
"I just think it's complementary to our supporters, the energy and intensity that they bring to every game. We can't wait to have them back but this is the situation we're in, we have to try and find it within ourselves."
Baldock, now 27, has needed to be resourceful throughout his career. He came through the academy ranks at MK Dons, in the shadow of older brother Sam, and, like so many in Wilder's squad, has scrapped to reach the top. An arduous route has taken in truncated loans at Northampton in League Two, Tamworth in the Conference Premier and Icelandic side IBV when he was just 19. It gave him a "burning desire to prove people wrong".
He joined Sheffield United for what he says has been "a hell of a ride" in the summer of 2017, the sound of 7,000 Blades fans celebrating promotion from League One at MK Dons a few weeks earlier still ringing in his ears, and eventually edged out Kieron Freeman to make the right wing-back spot in Wilder's challenging system his own.
He is the only player in the Sheffield United side to play every Premier League minute so far. Only John Lundstram has made more sprints. Only Chris Basham and Oliver Norwood have narrowly covered more kilometres overall. Like Lundstram, he undertook extra fitness work with a personal trainer in Dubai, in addition to a gruelling programme set by the club's conditioning staff.
Wilder has joked that he can't keep Baldock off the training ground because he "wants to learn everything about the game and who he's up against".
He is among the Premier League's top 10 defenders when it comes to touches in the opposition box and dribbles attempted - 42 per cent of Sheffield United's attacks have come down Baldock's right flank - but wants to finesse his final ball, his positioning, every aspect. Trent Alexander-Arnold - "probably the best in his position," Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Ricardo Pereira and Matt Doherty are all study subjects.
"I do look at other right-backs in the league; I've got no shame in saying that," he says. "It's what I've been brought up to do, looking at the best players in my position and seeing what they do.
"I need to improve my whole game. Unless you're Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there's always something! I'm always trying to tap into the nutritionists and physios, seeing if I can do anything extra.
"I feel like it's been a positive season. Most of us hadn't played in the Premier League before. We were all coming into the unknown. There was that bit of anxiety at first to see if you were up to speed, whether you could hack it in the big league. I've been pleased but this is just the start. I want to be playing in this division for the rest of my career."
For all the diligence preparation, the challenge of one tussle on the right flank this term sticks out.
"I'm always joking with Enda Stevens when the teamsheets come out, telling him I've got the best player to mark, but Sadio Mane has got everything.
"He can turn on a sixpence; he's quicker than anyone I've seen. He scores goals, he works hard, he's as strong as anything. What makes it hard is that he doesn't always want the ball to feet; he runs in behind, makes diagonal runs.
"He's always asking the question of you defensively. I just think he's world-class."
There have been other, less salubrious aspects of elite football to which Baldock and his team-mates have become accustomed. Wilder, repeatedly adamant his side would not indulge in 'dark arts' to sway decisions, jested they might have to after all following Arsenal's FA Cup victory, a game in which he perceived some of Mikel Arteta's players had gone to ground too easily.
"Whether you call it clever or something else, some players are really good at it unfortunately in this league, and then they're always talking about getting protection from the referees," Baldock says.
"I think it goes a bit too far sometimes. It's one thing getting fouled and another throwing yourself on the floor. I don't like to see that.
"Arsenal have got some fantastic players and sometimes they're so good at holding you off and manipulating the ball, they don't need to go down. It's a lot different to the Championship. We'll just get on with it but maybe we'll try to be a bit more clever ourselves, maybe get in the referee's ear a bit more."
Baldock is streetwise enough to know what to expect when Jose Mourinho's Tottenham visit on Thursday. Just a point separates two sides assembled at opposite ends of the financial spectrum but three for either would significantly boost their hopes of European football.
Wilder, master of the mood, lined his players up for head tennis on Wednesday.
"We're under no illusions it's going to be another really tough test," Baldock says. "They've got one of the best squads in the league, some world-class players and the manager's been there, done it; he's going to be very tactically astute but we've been doing some bits ourselves to try and get on top in the game.
"We've held our own with the best in the division. We're not in the position we're in in the league by luck so we need to try and take confidence from that. It's keeping that positive mindset. We'll go in aggressive and if we're at our best, I'm sure we can cause problems.
"Everyone wrote us off at the start of the season, everyone had us down in last place. We've proved people wrong.
"Now we just want to get back to the levels we were at. We want to do ourselves justice."
