THE Sheffield United dressing room is preparing for Championship football again next season - even though the club’s board is still fighting the Premier League over the Tevez affair. Goalkeeper Paddy Kenny has accepted that the club faces a battle to get back into the top flight of English football, although he still cannot believe the way the final matches of the season panned out.
Sheffield United, needing only a point to guarantee safety, lost to Wigan and were relegated when West Ham sensationally beat Manchester United on the final day.
Kenny, 29, was in the island at the weekend visiting his aunt, Bridget Desperques, mother of snooker star Martyn. It was his first trip here since he was a teenager.
Did he expect any success from the legal battle against West Ham? ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, no,’ he said. ‘We knew that when it came down to it, it was still in our hands out there on the last day - it was down to us.’
Kenny even praised the Hammers for an amazing late run which saw them beat the drop after looking all but doomed for most of the season.
The Halifax-born keeper, who represents the Republic of Ireland through his parents, admitted that his side had struggled away from home in the Premier League. ‘Through the season not once did I think we were safe until it would be mathematically so,’ he said, ‘and in the end we went down by one goal.’
Kenny was not surprised to see manager Neil Warnock, who was also his boss at previous club Bury, move on after the relegation.
‘After the game, the way he was talking you just knew. I think he thought he’d taken the lads as far as he could. I was gutted. I had always got on well with him. But he wants a fresh challenge and he will do a good job for somebody.’
Now the former Manchester United fan will line up for one of his old heroes, new boss Bryan Robson.
‘I’ve never come across him, but he’s someone I’ve always looked up to and it should be nice to work under him. He’s had two promotions from the Championship, so he’s done it before.’
Kenny hopes the squad will stay together to help the push for an immediate return to the Premier League, though England B player Phil Jagielka has been linked with various clubs. ‘But we know how hard that league is.’
He may have enjoyed a short break in the island, but Kenny was returning to Sheffield this week to face a challenge even tougher than pre-season training - running three marathons in three days in support of a children’s cancer charity in the city.
Article posted on 1st June, 2007 - 12.00am
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