Alan Biggs at Large: Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder will look to stay ahead of the curve - while the rest of the football world tries to catch up!

Right now we seem to have a lot of sheep in the English game, more so among those selecting new managers than among the managers themselves.

Right now the big talk is about “the press.” No, not a fixation with those lucky enough to write about the sport but the soundbite most commonly being transmitted.

“Pressing football” is all the rage. Just as it was once 4-2-4, then 4-4-2, then 3-5-2 and any number of sexy deviations including the “diamond shape.” The difference was that it was the coaches who prescribed how they’d play, rather than being selected on that basis.

You can be a follower of fashion or a trendsetter. Which is why you suspect managers like Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder, who was well to the fore on the “press”, will be brainstorming a new trick or two.

When something is seen to work, suddenly everyone wants to do it. Forgetting that those who got there first are likely to do it a whole lot better.

“The high priest of the high press” is how I heard new Leeds head coach Marcelo Bielsa described by the much respected South American football expert Tim Vickery. This was following the spectacular coup of the former Argentina and Chile manager’s appointment.

Leeds’ hierarchy evidently wanted the game as much as the name. Equally so, on a lesser plane, did Barnsley in hiring little-known German Daniel Stendel, primarily because he is a disciple of exactly the same style.

Germans are in vogue, of course, thanks to the excitement Jurgen Klopp’s all-action approach has brought to Liverpool and the stunning success of his one-time assistant David Wagner at Huddersfield.

As above, there is a sheep-like mentality to all this and sheep, as we know, aren’t clever. The sheep in football clothing tend to be out-foxed by the leaders of the pack.

Wilder’s challenge will be to stay one step ahead after storming League One and laying siege to the Championship with an aggressive, ultra-attacking style that will have contributed to the cloning attempts of others – and which rival teams, while fully recognising it, found hard to suppress.

The chances are that more opponents will attempt to fight fire with fire. Which is no bad thing for football because forwards and midfielders going high up the pitch to hunt down possession can stretch the game at both ends.

But the real innovators don’t stand still in a fluid game that is constantly changing shape. Will Bielsa bring a new trick to Leeds? Vickery makes the point that pressing is physically demanding to the point of exhaustion later in a season and that some of Bielsa’s teams had suffered from this.

Did Wilder’s Blades run out of steam late last season? Although results suggest they did, the performances said different. Just a bit of quality was lacking.

So you can’t see Wilder departing from the basic creed of being positive and demanding high energy to help combat the financial odds stacked against him. At some stage there’ll be a new element because that’s the way football works.

But simply doing it better – with the aid of a key strategic signing or two – can still leave plenty of others, including the sheep, with some catching up to do.