Carlton Blade
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With the number of first-team players whose contracts expire next summer running into double figures, this is a big season on so many levels for Sheffield United.
Not only are the South Yorkshire club desperate to go one better than last month’s play-off semi-final defeat by plotting a path back to the Premier League at the second attempt, but, with so many players into the final 12 months of their existing deals — including plenty of those who deservedly have legendary status at Bramall Lane for their part in the club’s meteoric rise from third tier to top flight under Chris Wilder — the outcome of the coming promotion push is likely to be far-reaching.
Manager Paul Heckingbottom is excited about the challenges that lie ahead in what will be his first full season at the helm. Much will depend on United’s business in a summer that will again see them working the loan market.
There is some money to spend, with a seven-figure bid understood to currently be on the table for an overseas signing and chief executive Stephen Bettis insisting big wages are available should the right loan signing become available.
A reduction in wages across the squad for a second successive summer after United failed to bounce straight back up will also help, not least in potentially persuading those not in the club’s plans, such as Oliver Burke, to follow released trio David McGoldrick, Lys Mousset and Luke Freeman by heading for the exit.
But Heckingbottom appreciates that a degree of wheeling and dealing may also have to be done to ensure United improve on last season’s fifth-place finish and subsequent loss in the play-offs, on penalties, to eventually-promoted Nottingham Forest.
With that in mind, The Athletic looks at every first-team squad member to analyse their possible role over the year ahead…
GOALKEEPERS (3)
Wes Foderingham (contract expires 2023)
After two years playing second fiddle to Dean Henderson and Aaron Ramsdale, Foderingham slipped to third in the pecking order briefly at the start of last season behind Michael Verrips and Robin Olsen. Now, though, he is United’s undisputed first choice in goal after 18 clean sheets in 32 Championship outings. A new contract should be a priority.
Jake Eastwood (contract expires 2022, new deal offered)
United put a new deal on the table at the end of last season but Eastwood is yet to sign. Providing a deal can be agreed, he will then go out on loan, with Scottish Premiership club Ross County already having expressed an interest. Eastwood spent time on emergency loan at Rochdale (League Two) and Portsmouth (League One) last term but made just three appearances, two of them in the final eight days of the regular campaign. At 25, Eastwood needs a run of games and a more substantial temporary move away. Inserting an instant-recall clause in any deal, in case United find themselves short, should be the way forward.
Adam Davies (contract expires 2022, new deal offered)
Heckingbottom’s only signing to date as United manager, the 29-year-old is yet to play a minute for the club. Nevertheless, United want Davies to stay and offered him a new deal ahead of the short-term contract signed in January, which expires at the end of this month. He is still on holiday, having been part of the Wales squad that qualified for the World Cup three weeks ago. There is interest from elsewhere in Davies, with Heckingbottom pinning his hopes on the pair’s successful time together at Barnsley.
CENTRAL DEFENDERS (6)
Chris Basham (contract expires 2024)
Where last season started amid great uncertainty for United’s longest-serving player due to being the odd man out in new manager Slavisa Jokanovic’s switch from a back three to a duo at the heart of the defence, this time around it is going to be very different. A new two-year deal signed in May underlines how highly Heckingbottom values the 33-year-old, who went straight back into the team in April after a two-month injury absence. The thinking behind handing Basham a brand new contract rather than activating a 12-month extension in his existing deal — as happened with team-mates Billy Sharp, Ben Osborn and Jack Robinson — was to give the club breathing space in recruiting his eventual successor for a role he has made his own these past six seasons.
John Egan (contract expires 2024)
One of only four Championship outfield players to feature in every minute of the 2021-22 regular-season campaign, the Republic of Ireland defender suffered an ankle injury on international duty earlier this month. He should, though, be fit to return to pre-season ahead of the training trip to Lisbon on July 2. Egan has been a mainstay of the United back line since joining from Brentford four years ago and there is no indication that will change.
Kyron Gordon (contract expires 2023)
Deputised for the injured Basham in February and March, chalking up five Championship appearances in the process. Highly regarded at Bramall Lane after coming through the academy, hence the clause covering a 12-month extension to a deal that was due to run out this summer being triggered in May. Gordon will be part of the squad in pre-season, after which a decision will be taken on whether to send the 20-year-old out on loan.
Kacper Lopata (contract expires 2023)
Impressed sufficiently on loan at Southend United last season that the National League club’s manager, Kevin Maher, has already enquired about taking the 20-year-old back to Roots Hall this season to help their EFL promotion bid. United, though, are in no rush to make a decision over the coming season. Heckingbottom plans to take a good look at the defender during the season. If he is to be loaned out, a club higher on the ladder is likely to be the preferred option over a return to non-League, with several clubs understood to have already put their hand up. United, though, would want the Poland Under-21 international to sign a new contract before being farmed out again. At least one club are interested in signing Lopata on a permanent basis.
Jack O’Connell (contract expires 2023)
It is coming up for two years since the Liverpudlian last played for United and his absence continues to be keenly felt. Surgery on a knee injury sustained in a training session shortly before the pandemic-extended 2019-20 season resumed that June did not solve the problem, hence why O’Connell had to go under the knife a second time.
Jack Robinson (contract expires 2023)
Winning over his critics with a hugely impressive second half of last season, Robinson enjoyed such good form that Ben Davies, the Liverpool loanee, had to watch the run-in and play-off games from the bench. He racked up 32 appearances in all competitions to trigger a one-year extension to the contract he signed after joining in January 2020 from Nottingham Forest. United are in the market for at least one central defender this summer, but Robinson remains the only natural left-footed centre-half on the books and seems certain to play a decent-sized role again next season.
WING-BACKS (6)
George Baldock (contract expires 2024)
With four international appearances for Greece (he qualifies via his maternal grandmother) and four clean sheets now to his name, United’s most recent international debutant has been attracting the interest of three-in-a-row Greek champions Olympiakos. It is not the first summer Baldock has been linked with a possible move to the Athens club. However, Olympiakos are also looking at Huddersfield Town’s former Spain Under-21s international Pipa, who is available at a lower price, as a more likely addition at right-back. With Jayden Bogle’s rehab following surgery still ongoing, Baldock will start the new season at right wing-back.
Jayden Bogle (contract expires 2024)
His season-ending knee injury in mid-February was a terrible blow for United. Not only had Bogle’s foraging down the right wing brought an added dimension to the team’s attacking play, but he was also chipping in with important goals, including winners against Reading and Birmingham City. United just weren’t as effective as an attacking unit once Bogle had been ruled out. His rehab is continuing but he’s not likely to return date until the autumn.
Max Lowe (contract expires 2024)
United are determined to play hardball with Nottingham Forest over a player who spent last season on loan at the City Ground. Lowe’s price has gone up since Forest won the play-off final last month, in a similar vein to how United’s post-promotion transfer targets during the summer of 2019 came with a premium due to them being wanted by a Premier League club not a Championship one. It is understood Forest have been quoted a fee in the region of £4-5 million — way above their six-figure bid that was quickly rejected last January. Lowe, whose value was put at around £3 million when signing from Derby County in a joint £11 million deal with Bogle two years ago, is expected back for pre-season on Monday with the rest of the squad.
Rhys Norrington-Davies (contract expires 2024)
Spent the final few weeks of last season playing second fiddle to Enda Stevens. It will be interesting to see what happens next with United’s coaching staff having worked hard with Norrington-Davies to improve his threat in an attacking sense. Defensively, the Wales international had a good breakthrough campaign at Bramall Lane — rarely did an opposition winger get the better of him. But with United reliant on their wing-backs to bring width when going forward, the 23-year-old needs to further improve his delivery from out wide. Do that, and he can really nail down a starting place for United ahead of the World Cup kicking off in November.
Femi Seriki (contract expires 2023)
It’s difficult not to feel sorry for the former Bury apprentice after a loan to United’s Belgian sister club Beerschot last summer did not work out. He needed his confidence restored after returning to the mothership early and a difficult full Championship debut at home to Forest in early March won’t have helped. Seriki ended the season on loan at non-League Boston United, helping the National League North (sixth tier) side to that level’s play-off final. A loan move again seems a likely option for the 2o-year-old, particularly once Bogle is back fit.
Enda Stevens (contract expires 2023)
Had his moments last season, not least when thumping in the fourth and final goal in the 4-0 final-day rout of champions Fulham. Has a year to run on his existing deal and may well start the season in the team. But he’s 32 next month and it is hard to get away from the sense this will be the final year at the Lane for a true club stalwart.
MIDFIELDERS (6)
Sander Berge (contract expires 2024)
Stale Solbakken, his Norway manager, recently voiced his belief that Berge should not be spending a second straight season in the Championship — something that annoyed Heckingbottom. Whether any concrete bids materialise this summer remains the big imponderable, but no offers have come in for him yet. Indications are United will listen to any bid that would mean their £22 million outlay on Berge in January 2020 is covered, even though the release clause in his contract remains at £35 million. Heckingbottom, for his part, wants the player to stay, but there is a feeling that United may well be bidding farewell to their record signing before the September 1 deadline.
Ismaila Coulibaly (contract expires 2025)
Signed in the summer of 2020 at age 19 and then sent on a three-year loan to sister club Beerschot, the Mali international will join up with the rest of the squad for pre-season training on Monday. His early recall was sanctioned by Heckingbottom earlier this summer. The manager wants to assess Coulibaly over a lengthy period after being encouraged by what he saw in training when the now 22-year-old had a short spell in Sheffield during the March international break. Whether this morphs into Coulibaly playing a part for United remains to be seen, but there was no sense in sending him back to Belgium following Beerschot’s recent relegation as, under Brexit rules the moment, the midfielder playing in the second tier would mean he would no longer be eligible for a visa to play in the UK. Coulibaly, a box-to-box midfielder, started his loan well but a bad injury and Beerschot’s struggles last season took a toll on someone who could yet become a poster boy for the United World set-up pioneered by owner Prince Abdullah.
John Fleck (contract expires 2023)
One of many who has given great service to United and is now entering the final year of his contract. Having started 33 league games last season, including both legs of the play-off semi-final, Fleck will be expecting to be heavily involved again this time around. Much, though, could depend on United’s recruitment, with it being no secret that the midfield could do with more energy going forward. Turning 31 a month into the new season, Fleck needs to rediscover the consistency that helped United to those two promotions.
Iliman Ndiaye (contract expires 2024)
Capped an impressive end to his breakthrough season in senior football with his Senegal debut in this month’s victory over Benin in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. Ndiaye has the skill set and growing maturity to become a real force with United. Perhaps guilty of lacking sufficient end product early last season, his burst of four goals in the final five games of the regular campaign played a huge part in United getting to the play-offs. Heckingbottom’s big quandary now is whether to again deploy the 22-year-old in the forward role he finished the season playing or as an attacking midfielder in the Morgan Gibbs-White mould.
Oliver Norwood (contract expires 2023)
If Norwood played well last season, so invariably did United. Equally, if he had an off-day then chances were United would endure the same. He is comfortably the best passer at the club and key to how United play, not least in the need to get the ball wide to the wing-backs quickly and accurately. Likely to again be the pivot around which the midfield will operate, while his crossing ability in open play from the right is another big plus. It is a surprise more opposition managers don’t put a man on Norwood, as happened in the 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough in September that saw Neil Warnock push Paddy McNair forward to put pressure on his former Northern Ireland team-mate. Another into the final year of his existing contract.
Ben Osborn (contract expires 2023)
The most versatile member of Heckingbottom’s squad — something that has probably cost Osborn since his 2019 move from Forest. Last season, he was deployed at left-back, left wing-back, right wing-back, central midfield, wide left in an attacking midfield trio and, in the 4-0 August thrashing at West Bromwich Albion, as part of a front three. Fully deserved the triggering of an extra 12 months on his existing deal, because every Championship squad benefits from having a Ben Osborn.
Not only are the South Yorkshire club desperate to go one better than last month’s play-off semi-final defeat by plotting a path back to the Premier League at the second attempt, but, with so many players into the final 12 months of their existing deals — including plenty of those who deservedly have legendary status at Bramall Lane for their part in the club’s meteoric rise from third tier to top flight under Chris Wilder — the outcome of the coming promotion push is likely to be far-reaching.
Manager Paul Heckingbottom is excited about the challenges that lie ahead in what will be his first full season at the helm. Much will depend on United’s business in a summer that will again see them working the loan market.
There is some money to spend, with a seven-figure bid understood to currently be on the table for an overseas signing and chief executive Stephen Bettis insisting big wages are available should the right loan signing become available.
A reduction in wages across the squad for a second successive summer after United failed to bounce straight back up will also help, not least in potentially persuading those not in the club’s plans, such as Oliver Burke, to follow released trio David McGoldrick, Lys Mousset and Luke Freeman by heading for the exit.
But Heckingbottom appreciates that a degree of wheeling and dealing may also have to be done to ensure United improve on last season’s fifth-place finish and subsequent loss in the play-offs, on penalties, to eventually-promoted Nottingham Forest.
With that in mind, The Athletic looks at every first-team squad member to analyse their possible role over the year ahead…
GOALKEEPERS (3)
Wes Foderingham (contract expires 2023)
After two years playing second fiddle to Dean Henderson and Aaron Ramsdale, Foderingham slipped to third in the pecking order briefly at the start of last season behind Michael Verrips and Robin Olsen. Now, though, he is United’s undisputed first choice in goal after 18 clean sheets in 32 Championship outings. A new contract should be a priority.
Jake Eastwood (contract expires 2022, new deal offered)
United put a new deal on the table at the end of last season but Eastwood is yet to sign. Providing a deal can be agreed, he will then go out on loan, with Scottish Premiership club Ross County already having expressed an interest. Eastwood spent time on emergency loan at Rochdale (League Two) and Portsmouth (League One) last term but made just three appearances, two of them in the final eight days of the regular campaign. At 25, Eastwood needs a run of games and a more substantial temporary move away. Inserting an instant-recall clause in any deal, in case United find themselves short, should be the way forward.
Adam Davies (contract expires 2022, new deal offered)
Heckingbottom’s only signing to date as United manager, the 29-year-old is yet to play a minute for the club. Nevertheless, United want Davies to stay and offered him a new deal ahead of the short-term contract signed in January, which expires at the end of this month. He is still on holiday, having been part of the Wales squad that qualified for the World Cup three weeks ago. There is interest from elsewhere in Davies, with Heckingbottom pinning his hopes on the pair’s successful time together at Barnsley.
CENTRAL DEFENDERS (6)
Chris Basham (contract expires 2024)
Where last season started amid great uncertainty for United’s longest-serving player due to being the odd man out in new manager Slavisa Jokanovic’s switch from a back three to a duo at the heart of the defence, this time around it is going to be very different. A new two-year deal signed in May underlines how highly Heckingbottom values the 33-year-old, who went straight back into the team in April after a two-month injury absence. The thinking behind handing Basham a brand new contract rather than activating a 12-month extension in his existing deal — as happened with team-mates Billy Sharp, Ben Osborn and Jack Robinson — was to give the club breathing space in recruiting his eventual successor for a role he has made his own these past six seasons.
John Egan (contract expires 2024)
One of only four Championship outfield players to feature in every minute of the 2021-22 regular-season campaign, the Republic of Ireland defender suffered an ankle injury on international duty earlier this month. He should, though, be fit to return to pre-season ahead of the training trip to Lisbon on July 2. Egan has been a mainstay of the United back line since joining from Brentford four years ago and there is no indication that will change.
Kyron Gordon (contract expires 2023)
Deputised for the injured Basham in February and March, chalking up five Championship appearances in the process. Highly regarded at Bramall Lane after coming through the academy, hence the clause covering a 12-month extension to a deal that was due to run out this summer being triggered in May. Gordon will be part of the squad in pre-season, after which a decision will be taken on whether to send the 20-year-old out on loan.
Kacper Lopata (contract expires 2023)
Impressed sufficiently on loan at Southend United last season that the National League club’s manager, Kevin Maher, has already enquired about taking the 20-year-old back to Roots Hall this season to help their EFL promotion bid. United, though, are in no rush to make a decision over the coming season. Heckingbottom plans to take a good look at the defender during the season. If he is to be loaned out, a club higher on the ladder is likely to be the preferred option over a return to non-League, with several clubs understood to have already put their hand up. United, though, would want the Poland Under-21 international to sign a new contract before being farmed out again. At least one club are interested in signing Lopata on a permanent basis.
Jack O’Connell (contract expires 2023)
It is coming up for two years since the Liverpudlian last played for United and his absence continues to be keenly felt. Surgery on a knee injury sustained in a training session shortly before the pandemic-extended 2019-20 season resumed that June did not solve the problem, hence why O’Connell had to go under the knife a second time.
Jack Robinson (contract expires 2023)
Winning over his critics with a hugely impressive second half of last season, Robinson enjoyed such good form that Ben Davies, the Liverpool loanee, had to watch the run-in and play-off games from the bench. He racked up 32 appearances in all competitions to trigger a one-year extension to the contract he signed after joining in January 2020 from Nottingham Forest. United are in the market for at least one central defender this summer, but Robinson remains the only natural left-footed centre-half on the books and seems certain to play a decent-sized role again next season.
WING-BACKS (6)
George Baldock (contract expires 2024)
With four international appearances for Greece (he qualifies via his maternal grandmother) and four clean sheets now to his name, United’s most recent international debutant has been attracting the interest of three-in-a-row Greek champions Olympiakos. It is not the first summer Baldock has been linked with a possible move to the Athens club. However, Olympiakos are also looking at Huddersfield Town’s former Spain Under-21s international Pipa, who is available at a lower price, as a more likely addition at right-back. With Jayden Bogle’s rehab following surgery still ongoing, Baldock will start the new season at right wing-back.
Jayden Bogle (contract expires 2024)
His season-ending knee injury in mid-February was a terrible blow for United. Not only had Bogle’s foraging down the right wing brought an added dimension to the team’s attacking play, but he was also chipping in with important goals, including winners against Reading and Birmingham City. United just weren’t as effective as an attacking unit once Bogle had been ruled out. His rehab is continuing but he’s not likely to return date until the autumn.
Max Lowe (contract expires 2024)
United are determined to play hardball with Nottingham Forest over a player who spent last season on loan at the City Ground. Lowe’s price has gone up since Forest won the play-off final last month, in a similar vein to how United’s post-promotion transfer targets during the summer of 2019 came with a premium due to them being wanted by a Premier League club not a Championship one. It is understood Forest have been quoted a fee in the region of £4-5 million — way above their six-figure bid that was quickly rejected last January. Lowe, whose value was put at around £3 million when signing from Derby County in a joint £11 million deal with Bogle two years ago, is expected back for pre-season on Monday with the rest of the squad.
Rhys Norrington-Davies (contract expires 2024)
Spent the final few weeks of last season playing second fiddle to Enda Stevens. It will be interesting to see what happens next with United’s coaching staff having worked hard with Norrington-Davies to improve his threat in an attacking sense. Defensively, the Wales international had a good breakthrough campaign at Bramall Lane — rarely did an opposition winger get the better of him. But with United reliant on their wing-backs to bring width when going forward, the 23-year-old needs to further improve his delivery from out wide. Do that, and he can really nail down a starting place for United ahead of the World Cup kicking off in November.
Femi Seriki (contract expires 2023)
It’s difficult not to feel sorry for the former Bury apprentice after a loan to United’s Belgian sister club Beerschot last summer did not work out. He needed his confidence restored after returning to the mothership early and a difficult full Championship debut at home to Forest in early March won’t have helped. Seriki ended the season on loan at non-League Boston United, helping the National League North (sixth tier) side to that level’s play-off final. A loan move again seems a likely option for the 2o-year-old, particularly once Bogle is back fit.
Enda Stevens (contract expires 2023)
Had his moments last season, not least when thumping in the fourth and final goal in the 4-0 final-day rout of champions Fulham. Has a year to run on his existing deal and may well start the season in the team. But he’s 32 next month and it is hard to get away from the sense this will be the final year at the Lane for a true club stalwart.
MIDFIELDERS (6)
Sander Berge (contract expires 2024)
Stale Solbakken, his Norway manager, recently voiced his belief that Berge should not be spending a second straight season in the Championship — something that annoyed Heckingbottom. Whether any concrete bids materialise this summer remains the big imponderable, but no offers have come in for him yet. Indications are United will listen to any bid that would mean their £22 million outlay on Berge in January 2020 is covered, even though the release clause in his contract remains at £35 million. Heckingbottom, for his part, wants the player to stay, but there is a feeling that United may well be bidding farewell to their record signing before the September 1 deadline.
Ismaila Coulibaly (contract expires 2025)
Signed in the summer of 2020 at age 19 and then sent on a three-year loan to sister club Beerschot, the Mali international will join up with the rest of the squad for pre-season training on Monday. His early recall was sanctioned by Heckingbottom earlier this summer. The manager wants to assess Coulibaly over a lengthy period after being encouraged by what he saw in training when the now 22-year-old had a short spell in Sheffield during the March international break. Whether this morphs into Coulibaly playing a part for United remains to be seen, but there was no sense in sending him back to Belgium following Beerschot’s recent relegation as, under Brexit rules the moment, the midfielder playing in the second tier would mean he would no longer be eligible for a visa to play in the UK. Coulibaly, a box-to-box midfielder, started his loan well but a bad injury and Beerschot’s struggles last season took a toll on someone who could yet become a poster boy for the United World set-up pioneered by owner Prince Abdullah.
John Fleck (contract expires 2023)
One of many who has given great service to United and is now entering the final year of his contract. Having started 33 league games last season, including both legs of the play-off semi-final, Fleck will be expecting to be heavily involved again this time around. Much, though, could depend on United’s recruitment, with it being no secret that the midfield could do with more energy going forward. Turning 31 a month into the new season, Fleck needs to rediscover the consistency that helped United to those two promotions.
Iliman Ndiaye (contract expires 2024)
Capped an impressive end to his breakthrough season in senior football with his Senegal debut in this month’s victory over Benin in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. Ndiaye has the skill set and growing maturity to become a real force with United. Perhaps guilty of lacking sufficient end product early last season, his burst of four goals in the final five games of the regular campaign played a huge part in United getting to the play-offs. Heckingbottom’s big quandary now is whether to again deploy the 22-year-old in the forward role he finished the season playing or as an attacking midfielder in the Morgan Gibbs-White mould.
Oliver Norwood (contract expires 2023)
If Norwood played well last season, so invariably did United. Equally, if he had an off-day then chances were United would endure the same. He is comfortably the best passer at the club and key to how United play, not least in the need to get the ball wide to the wing-backs quickly and accurately. Likely to again be the pivot around which the midfield will operate, while his crossing ability in open play from the right is another big plus. It is a surprise more opposition managers don’t put a man on Norwood, as happened in the 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough in September that saw Neil Warnock push Paddy McNair forward to put pressure on his former Northern Ireland team-mate. Another into the final year of his existing contract.
Ben Osborn (contract expires 2023)
The most versatile member of Heckingbottom’s squad — something that has probably cost Osborn since his 2019 move from Forest. Last season, he was deployed at left-back, left wing-back, right wing-back, central midfield, wide left in an attacking midfield trio and, in the 4-0 August thrashing at West Bromwich Albion, as part of a front three. Fully deserved the triggering of an extra 12 months on his existing deal, because every Championship squad benefits from having a Ben Osborn.
They are a under paid over worked bunch of lifesavers - hard to grasp we have a goal scorer that can’t score who earns more in a week than most of them do in a year
