After Sheffield United’s relegation from the Premier League was confirmed over the weekend, Stuart Rayner examines where the Blades went wrong.
Foderingham; Ahmedhodzic, Egan, Robinson; Baldock, Basham, Norwood, Lowe; Traore, Osborn; and Osula. Slimane, Souza, Larouci, Hackford, Brooks, Davies, Trusty, Marsh, and Seriki are the available substitutes.
Sheffield United were set up to fail from the start. Relegation from the Premier League comes as no surprise.
The first squad sheet of the season served as a harsh reminder of the Blades’ poor management last summer. This is not a reference to Paul Heckingbottom, but rather to the hand he was given.
That club would lose against the previous season’s opponents. They finished second in the Championship, barely making it across the finish line when Middlesbrough ramped up the heat. This was the premier league.
Chris Basham is a valuable asset to any club, but the team had outgrown him after only making 18 Championship starts in the previous season. However, he needed to play in midfield alongside Oliver Norwood, a 2019-20 standout who was replaced by Tommy Doyle in the 2023 season.
Benie Traore was a 20-year-old who made 26 appearances in Sweden’s top division. Ben Osborn, his fellow inside forward, was an odd-job man rather than a specialist. Will Osula was the Championship’s seventh-choice centre forward.
“It felt like Sheffield United had brought a knife to a gunfight, only to stop on the way to pawn it,” I wrote on the first day. “Heckingbottom’s pre-match phrase about ‘rabbits in the headlights’ sprang to mind” .
Gustavo Hamer was there in his civvies, having signed the night before and flourished in the Championship last season, albeit at the expense of Sander Berge, who had been loaned out to Burnley. Iliman Ndiaye had been sold to Marseille and would be replaced by Cameron Archer. Neither were upgraded.
Tom Davies came in a matter of days, but he has only made two starts due to a lack of sufficient preseason preparation.
Later in the window, James McAtee returned on loan from Manchester City, but Doyle did not. Luke Thomas also came, but was turned away at the first opportunity.
More than one disastrous transfer window contributed to such a dreadful season, which is still ongoing but no longer important after relegation was confirmed at the weekend.
Bad luck played a role, with captain John Egan and vice-captain Basham, both centre-backs, suffering season-ending injuries just days apart. When you provoke Fate in this way, it becomes extremely easily persuaded.
After such an unambitious summer, there was never going to be a January outlay to bring it back – not with Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad Al Saud being unable to sell the club – and Ivo Grbic and Mason Holgate were poor additions, with Ben Brereton Diaz only able to do so much.
Chris Wilder couldn’t turn a tsunami of a tide.
Players who do not care or strive hard enough are sometimes criticised in losing teams, but Sheffield United’s were neither physically nor emotionally strong enough to withstand the Premier League heat.
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Only £20 million to enhance the squad to Premier League standards was a white flag. Selling Berge and Ndiaye to add to it sent it up the flagpole.
It wouldn’t have been as horrible if there had been more investment since the dreadful summer of 2020. Heckingbottom masked the flaws in the second tier, but the spotlight shines brighter in the world’s most watched league.
Heckingbottom would have remained in charge if the Blades had lost in the play-offs last season, according to then-Barnsley manager James McAtee. He did well to last until December.
The board knew they had given him a hospital pass, but the beatings grew too brutal to ignore.
Vinicius Souza, the most costly of the first wave of newcomers, believes he should be a Brazilian international, but we’ve seen him compete. He, like Hamer and Archer, has only produced when it was necessary to carry the squad.
Anel Ahmedhodzic, who was so promising in the second tier, has yet to deliver. Despite losing Egan, Jack Robinson, the least gifted of the Blades’ back three last season, has proven to be their greatest player.
With so little of Egan, Basham, Norwood (by choice), Davies, and Oli McBurnie (not sturdy enough for a 38-game Premier League season), hammerings exposed a lack of leadership, implying that they will undoubtedly concede more than 100 goals this season.
Despite only 10 starts, 20-year-old midfielder Oliver Arblaster is likely second behind Robinson in the player-of-the-season race. He is the great hope for the future, brave in where he takes the ball, cautious in how he uses it, and keen to reclaim it, but with so much work to be done around him, an immediate promotion is unlikely.
There are numerous lessons to be learned during 2023-24, which marks the end of nearly four years of disastrous judgements. Top of the list is not to build a hut of straw and hope to survive among the Premier League’s huge, dangerous wolves.
