Retained list - 2026

[Kevincarterversion2.0]

Jairo is absolutely a decent player but not worth breaking the bank for in the post-parachutes wage structure. For me, the central midfield was collectively awful last season so not particularly gutted to see it replaced. I’m sure the club know Shackleton will not play a key role, but they ain’t going to say that publicly.

 

[Paisley Blade]

Literally just saw him on a jet2 flight from Mallorca to Glasgow… the exact signing Celtic or Rangers would make imo

He's got family in Ayr.

That's my ITK debut.

 

[ben1987]

Shame about Jairo but we really need more athleticism and plates able to complete 90 mins on a regular basis.

We need someone in midfield capable of breaking the lines and running beyond the opposition midfield.

No doubt wilder fancies bringing back Philips and Slater. Hopefully he’s got something more exciting up his sleeve to replace Davies and Soumare. (Assuming we sell Peck)

 

[Shadota]

Fotmob, Transfermarkt, Soccerbase, Wikipedia, WhoScored, Premierleague.com, OptaAnalyst are among the sites who's got it wrong then.

Well, Wikipedia have definitely got it wrong somewhere:

 

[Ginger Gnome]

Shacks be first choice Right back next season.

Probably, just because Bielsa played him out of position once and Wilder has his head so far up Bielsa's arse that he could lick his tonsils.

 

[Grappler]

Well, Wikipedia have definitely got it wrong somewhere:

View attachment 237396

Never mind Wikipedia, look what is on our Club's website!

"...As a player that has willingly gained experience at a host of different clubs during his time as a Blade, Seriki will be looking to become a regular starter under Rubén Sellés...."

https://www.sufc.co.uk/teams/first-team/femiseriki

 

[Badger Blade]

Disappointed about Jairo, we were miles better when he was on the field.

However, we talked about the "Jairo hour".

It was the 30 minutes that he wasn't on the field that were the problem and if he's not physically capable of doing the extra minutes, then nothing changes vs last season, therefore isn't worth investing extra money on a new deal.

We'd better have some decent players on the way with the added ability of being able to run for 90 minutes otherwise it'll be another season of drudgery.

 

[relish]

That commenter (like a lot of people) have got a lot of learning to do about what the end of parachute payments combined with SCR will mean for us this summer. Depending on income from sales, we’ll probably need to more or less halve our wage bill from last season. Jairo certainly won’t be the last big earner to go, whether Wilder would like to keep them or not.

 

[LBA_Blade]

Shame about Jairo but we really need more athleticism and plates able to complete 90 mins on a regular basis.

We need someone in midfield capable of breaking the lines and running beyond the opposition midfield.

No doubt wilder fancies bringing back Philips and Slater. Hopefully he’s got something more exciting up his sleeve to replace Davies and Soumare. (Assuming we sell Peck)

We have Blaster and Rothwell contracted, we could look to the development side to bring someone else through but haven’t seen anyone that could be capable of making the jump up. Even have Matos that can play there too who is sort of devlopment, we need to get rid of a couple before we could only dream of Phillips and City would have to be offering him of £20k or less weekly wages

 

[DaddyDozy]

He's got family in Ayr.

That's my ITK debut.

Destroying my ITK debut in the process

 

[Harry's Game]

That commenter (like a lot of people) have got a lot of learning to do about what the end of parachute payments combined with SCR will mean for us this summer. Depending on income from sales, we’ll probably need to more or less halve our wage bill from last season. Jairo certainly won’t be the last big earner to go, whether Wilder would like to keep them or not.

That’s a good argument.. however if we now go out to bring Kalvin Phillips back it doesn’t hold water as he would be on even more

 

[TJ blade]

We need players what can last 90mins at least, and pace and physical presence, sadly although a decent player, Jairo lacked both.

 

[relish]

That’s a good argument.. however if we now go out to bring Kalvin Phillips back it doesn’t hold water as he would be on even more

Yes - bringing in Kalvin Phillips would only be possible with some substantial transfer income (unless Man City continue to cover most of his wages).

 

[TJ blade]

We need players what can last 90mins at least, and pace and physical presence, sadly although a decent player, Jairo lacked both.

All 3

 

[AWetFlannel]

That’s a good argument.. however if we now go out to bring Kalvin Phillips back it doesn’t hold water as he would be on even more

It's not an unreasonable assumption, but we've got no idea what Phillips would be on and what he can demand for wages, just like we don't know what Jairo is on and if wages is the reason he's gone.

 

[LBA_Blade]

Yes - bringing in Kalvin Phillips would only be possible with some substantial transfer income (unless Man City continue to cover most of his wages).

At very least we are looking at offloading Peck and Hamer for that to happen, that would free up some wages and also some income for a few seasons. Personally I don’t see the point

 

[Bladesman]

Newcastle could do us a solid and sell Osula.

 

[AWetFlannel]

Yes - bringing in Kalvin Phillips would only be possible with some substantial transfer income (unless Man City continue to cover most of his wages).

Reports suggest City are looking to buy him out of his contract altogether, never mind loaning him out and paying the vast majority of his wages.

 

[KMC-1889]

Why are people so desperate/convinced we’re signing Phillips? We’ve already wasted 5 months wages on him we should be steering well clear.

Ultimately we have Peck, Brooks, Rothwell, Arblaster, Hamer, O’Hare, Shackleton & Chong can play in a midfield 2, even Tanganga started his career playing there.

If we were to sell a ‘big’ name like Brooks, Peck or Hamer then even half of that fee will be able to get us a better all round player than Jairo.

 

[10p]

At least we’ve kept hold of Grbic !!!!

 

[madeinsheffield]

Unable to last 90 minutes.

Shackleton can't even start 90 minutes!

 

[JD88]

Players over 24 as at 30th June 2026 retained
Patrick Bamford, Harrison Burrows, Tyrese Campbell, Tahith Chong, Michael Cooper, Adam Davies*, Ivo Grbic, Gus Hamer, Sam McCallum, Mark McGuinness, Rhys Norrington-Davies, Callum O'Hare, Joe Rothwell, Jamie Shackleton, Japhet Tanganga.


Players over 24 as at 30th June 2026 released
Tom Davies, Danny Ings, Ben Mee, Jairo Riedewald.


Players under 24 as at 30th June 2026 retained
Siem Eyob-Abraha, Oli Arblaster, Max Asante-Boakye, Sam Aston, Jamal Baptiste, Keehan Barrett-Underwood, Jevan Beattie, Billy Blacker, Andre Brooks, Jili Buyabu, Tom Cannon, Archie Christie-Crainie, Sam Colechin, Sam Curtis, Chris Eadie, Luke Faxon, Zach Giggs, Coby Hewitson, Alfie Hough, Theo Howard, Jaydon Makhalira, Louie Marsh, Alex Matos, Harry McGlinchey, Christian Nwachukwu, Seth Okyere, Ryan One, Lennon Patterson, Sydie Peck, Mihail Polendakov, Aaron Reid, Sai Sachdev, Dovydas Sasnauskas, Femi Seriki, Lamine Sidibe, Zain Tahir, Jay Tinsdale, Ehije Ukaki, Nils Zatterstrom.


Players under 24 as at 30th June 2026 released
Evan Easton, Marshall Francis, Liam Hall, Owen Hampson, Frankie Jones, Jayden Prunty, Jackson Blaize, Jack Waldron.


Scholarship year two contract offered
Arlo Coubrough, Ben Grainger.


Scholarship year two released
Franklyn Gordon, Riley McLachlan, Dylan Tawodzera, Alfie Venners.


Scholarship year one retained
Robert Adams, Charlie Bulmer, Tom Dearden, Cole Hay, Emmett Morrison, Ben Murray, Marley Parr-Pearson, Matthew Poppleton.


Loan players returning to parent clubs
Leo Hjelde, Tyler Bindon, Ki-Jana Hoever, Djibril Soumaré, Chiedozie Ogbene, Kalvin Phillips.


* indicates option activated.

10 gone from last season Just the 12 to go . Hopefully !!

 

[Groucho Blade]

It’s all a bit worrying, innit? Looks like we’ll need one or two academy lads to progress to the first team every season, just so we can balance the books.

Who’s the next one off the production line?

 

[Balham]

Fotmob, Transfermarkt, Soccerbase, Wikipedia, WhoScored, Premierleague.com, OptaAnalyst are among the sites who's got it wrong then.

I suspect there's a single incorrect source and all those websites you've referenced pull from that.

For what it's worth, Seriki was listed as an U21 in the 2024/25 EFL squad list and the cut off for that was 1/1/2003

https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/gc-media-assets.gc.eflservices.co.uk/65dc2290-9c5a-11ef-91f1-ff97ab87010f.pdf

 

[Withington Blade]

Ultimately we have Peck, Brooks, Rothwell, Arblaster, Hamer, O’Hare, Shackleton & Chong can play in a midfield 2, even Tanganga started his career playing there.

Don’t forget Matos

 

[LBA_Blade]

We have Blaster and Rothwell contracted, we could look to the development side to bring someone else through but haven’t seen anyone that could be capable of making the jump up. Even have Matos that can play there too who is sort of devlopment, we need to get rid of a couple before we could only dream of Phillips and City would have to be offering him of £20k or less weekly wages

Just looking further at my comment there, Billy Blacker can also play DM, he was out at Tranmere last season making 29 appearances and the equivalent of 19 x 90 mins games with minutes played. I know they are League 2 and not sure if he could do with a League 1 loan first but he could easily be another one we save the wages on Phillips with utilising our contracted players.

https://www.tranmererovers.co.uk/teams/first-team/billyblacker

Ultimately getting rid of Hamer and adding a couple of loans is where we are squad wise, we can afford to keep Peck (unless a decent bid is offered then we will be silly to turn it down). The thing we have to think about is next summer already , currently out of contract in 2027 is....

Chris Wilder
Adam Davies
Gus Hamer (if he stays)
Tyrese Campbell
Andre Brooks
Femi Seriki
Jamie Shakleton
Pat Bamford
Joe Rothwell

Any negotiating contracts will cost us agent fees and likely Brooks & Seriki would be after more wages as they develop and if we keep Bamford (he will be 34 in that season) we probably have a large sum there fees wise and signing on bonuses etc. This is where our long term strategy needs to come into play, I don't care really if we are deemed/our ambition is to be a midtable Championship club, we can see the squad we have got now and next summer and need a plan of how we achieve that 26/27 and moving forwards post Wilder and potentially Bamford. I would like to think that some of the development squad can fill some gaps to keep us ticking over and I wouldn't oppose someone like Hecky returning to fulfil management of that process. We have to be realistic the Premier League is going to be a long way off for some time unless, we manage to bring a squad together on the cheap that clicks like the Wilder MK1 squad. We need to blend the youth and pick up the odd bargain where we can, it isn't going to be easy but I can see a few clubs struggling.

 

[LBA_Blade]

It’s all a bit worrying, innit? Looks like we’ll need one or two academy lads to progress to the first team every season, just so we can balance the books.

Who’s the next one off the production line?

I just commented after possibly Billy Blacker for the DM role, have a few that have shown some quality, it's getting that into the 1st team which will be difficult

 

[Millhousesblade1889]

I don't think you gain promotion with Jairo as a regular starter, I also don't think you face relegation with him either. He's a steady player...but you look at Middlesborough, Coventry, Ipswich & Southampton's midfield pairings or ours the year before & I'm not sure he starts in any of those.

That said he would get in their squads, we just don't have that luxury anymore.

 

[ben1987]

Why are people so desperate/convinced we’re signing Phillips? We’ve already wasted 5 months wages on him we should be steering well clear.

Ultimately we have Peck, Brooks, Rothwell, Arblaster, Hamer, O’Hare, Shackleton & Chong can play in a midfield 2, even Tanganga started his career playing there.

If we were to sell a ‘big’ name like Brooks, Peck or Hamer then even half of that fee will be able to get us a better all round player than Jairo.

I don’t think people (myself included) are desperate to sign him.

I’d rather not.

I mentioned him in my post because It’s just the most Sheffield United / wilder thing to do. Since he got injured wilder has bigged him up with telling everyone he didn’t fuck off back to city he was at our games and in players meetings etc. There’s been several rumours wilder wants him back and there are rumours at the city side they’ve given up on recouping anything from him and are willing to pay him up.

Not that I want it to happen but him getting paid up at city means he could be available on a “free” I say free because he’ll want a signing on fee and paying but he’ll have got a final years salary in the bank to cushion the blow of getting a greatly reduced salary in the champ.

Can’t see him getting a prem move so championship or abroad are his only options if he wants to play football it seems.

 

[Lowen]

So disappointed in the release of Riedewald. Even if we are bringing in a midfielder and feel we’ll have too many bodies there, Jairo is easily capable of performing at centre half too.