How Sheffield United Turned Overlapping Centre-Backs into a Premier League Tactic

When Sheffield United earned promotion in 2018/19, it marked their return to the top flight for the first time since 2007. But it also represented a shift in the footballing landscape. Gone were the days of rigid 4-4-2s and survival-at-all-costs pragmatism.

To compete—and more importantly, to stay up—Sheffield United needed more than grit. They needed a tactical identity that would set them apart.

Most people wrote off Chris Wilder's side. They were odds-on favourites at @0.83/1 to go down, and people ruled them out before they had even kicked a ball. The side lacked Premier League experience and had been in League One just three seasons prior.

But Wilder had been quietly crafting a system that would not only help the Blades survive—it would become the foundation of one of the Premier League’s most unexpected success stories. His innovative tactics were central to not only Sheffield surviving the Premier League, but to them thriving, finishing an astonishing 9th in their first season back.

The Boss

Chris Wilder performed so well in his third season at the club that he was given the League Managers Association’s manager of the year prize. In the same season Pep Guardiola guided Manchester City to a historic domestic treble—accumulating a near-unprecedented 98 points in the Premier League—it was Wilder who took home the honour.

2015- 2016 ⬇️ Sheffield United 11th in League One

May 2016 🤝 Chris Wilder takes over

May 2017 🍾 #SUFC win League One with 100 points

May 2019 ⬆️ Promoted to the Premier League

August 2019 👏 A valuable point in his first top flight game

Chris Wilder is magic! pic.twitter.com/S5Ser1Tiec

— Ladbrokes (@Ladbrokes) August 10, 2019

Before the English manager took over, the Blades were in turmoil. They had endured five successive seasons in League One, and their most recent campaign had ended in 11th place—the club’s lowest finish since 1982/83.

But under Wilder, the team transformed, and the squad slowly started to resemble a revolutionary side. Wilder was not just given the award due to him doing the impossible and helping the Blades get promoted; they played a unique style of football that would be able to break down any team.

Overlapping Centre-Backs

To put it simply, Wilder played overlapping centre-backs—weaponising his last line of defence like we have never seen before.

One of the most effective ways to break down an organised defence is through overloads—applying numerical and positional pressure in wide areas. In a formation such as a 4-3-3, we could see the two full-backs overlap their team's wingers to not only offer options, but to draw pressure away from players and allow more space. A famous example of this would be Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson at Liverpool.

But Chris Wilder approached it differently. He often set his Sheffield United side up in a 3-4-1-2 formation—a system that includes two wing-backs but, at first glance, no obvious candidates to overlap them.

Finally here are the latest scatter graphics for the Premier League: https://t.co/aOM6QDk5N5

Watford's finishing has been absolutely horrific so far, while Sheffield United have looked impressively solid for a promoted team. pic.twitter.com/fKD22R9Okp

— Ben Mayhew (@experimental361) November 5, 2019

That’s where the innovation came in.

Instead of full-backs, it was the wide centre-backs who were tasked with providing the overload.

With John Egan, the rock of Sheffield's defence, it left Jack O'Connell on the left and Chris Basham on the right. Both O'Connell and Basham were given instructions to aggressively attack down the wing and get into a position where they can cross the ball in. This left the wing-backs in free positions where they could tuck inside and get into goal-scoring opportunities.

And this wasn’t the only advantage Wilder unlocked with overlapping centre-backs. In certain games, he’d use a 3-5-2 formation that functioned more like a 3-3-2-2, with a deep-lying midfielder anchoring the structure.

What this shape allowed was the formation of two fluid units—one on the left and one on the right—each made up of four players: the wide centre-back, wing-back, central midfielder, and striker.

These players were encouraged and expected to overlap and interchange with each other during the game. The tactic draws from the idea of total football, created by Jimmy Hogan but popularised by Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff. The idea is that the players can play in any position on the pitch

While Wilder’s Sheffield United didn’t fully embrace that ideology in its purest form, echoes of it were unmistakable. His players weren’t rigidly locked into zones; instead, they were required to be comfortable in multiple roles

This constant rotation created natural passing triangles between three of the four players at any given time. These triangles were essential to Wilder, and it allowed for quick passes and fluid positional play.

With the back-line still being able to hold three players no matter what the circumstance, it shows why Wilder's tactics worked. The back line held compact, not allowing many goals whatsoever.

Their rock-solid defence conceded just 39 goals in the 2019/20 Premier League season—the fourth-best record in the division.

Comparisons, Contrasts and Legacy

We have rarely seen any team like Chris Wilder's Sheffield United. While Pep Guardiola had encouraged his full-backs to invert into midfield, and Antonio Conte re-popularised the back three, no one had weaponised the wide centre-back quite like this.

Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds side may be the closest example, but Wilder's tactical nuance was distinctively British. Aggressive, but there was always somebody to fall back on and help you.

Sadly for Wilder, after his first season in the Premier League, other clubs started to figure him out. Prior to this, teams did not know how to defend against a team where everyone overlaps, do they follow their man or zonal mark?

Injuries did not help the Blades in the 2020/21 season, nor did other challenges. By the end of the campaign, they found themselves rooted to the bottom of the table with just 23 points, having conceded 63 goals.

Sheffield came back up for the 2023/24 season, but once again finished in the 20th place and had arguably the worst ever Premier League season

Wilder's tactics may have had a short-lived life in the Premier League, but there’s no doubt that, for a time, Chris Wilder changed Sheffield United’s fortunes and made his overlapping centre-backs a recognised part of the Premier League lexicon.