Pre-season means signings. And signings mean becoming wildly overexcited about a footballer you have barely seen, or dismissing somebody who will eventually become a club legend. In this episode of Memory Lane, Andrew and Sam revisit the Sheffield United transfers that made fools of us all.

First, they rank five signings they expected to be brilliant but absolutely were not. Then, thankfully, they turn to the players who surprised us in the other direction. The unheralded arrivals, underwhelming trialists and apparent journeymen who became promotion heroes, Premier League performers and genuine legends.

A History of Sheffield United through Cards and Stickers: 1897–2026

BY DEADBAT

Football stickers are enjoying a huge renaissance. Fierce licensing battles between the giants of the industry, Panini and Topps, have peaked in tournament years. However, even in our domestic league the rebirth of the adhesive collecting experience has filtered down to our own football club. Digital integration, premium finishes and the vast array of cards and stickers have inspired a new breed of collector.

As a man firmly entrenched in middle age, I perhaps should not be excited by the vision of a shiny sticker, but here we are! Having children provides an ‘excuse’ to purchase the World Cup sticker albums or the Premier League books where you can try and collect as many England or Sheffield United players as you can.

Of course, the collection of small, wallet-sized images of footballers has not been restricted to the sticky type. Cards in cigarette packets, periodicals, magazines, and newspapers have documented the changing face of our national game. Trading cards have become a fierce and lucrative industry in their own right. My personal collecting experience began in the mid-1980s through the aforementioned Panini, with a simple badge or team sticker. As United climbed the leagues you could really expand your collection with whole squads available. Latterly, card collections such as the ProSet series would further dent my Mum’s bank balance.

I started to research the hobby of card/sticker collecting and ended up down so many rabbit holes but I tried to focus specifically on the Blades and their own history. I was surprised to find there had been close to 5,000 individual cards and stickers produced in connection with SUFC. This number has grown hugely after our three spells in the top flight since the turn of the millennium when a myriad of card and sticker types are produced for Premier League clubs.

Part One: The Birth and Death of the Cigarette Card

1897–1937

In the 1870s, tobacco companies began inserting blank pieces of cardboard into paper cigarette packets to protect the cigarettes from being crushed. These ‘stiffeners’ soon were to be used as prime advertising spaces. Companies then evolved such advertisements into collectible pictorial sets. These attempted to foster brand loyalty and, because the primary consumers were working-class men, it was an obvious decision to use football, and footballers, on such cards. At the time, writer Arnold Bennett remarked that “some boys will grow up with cigarette cards as their sole education”. Another writer, Clifford Hough, pointed out that cigarette cards were dubbed “The Working Man’s Encyclopaedia” because “they brought pictures of famous faces and fascinating places” to the attention of the masses.

Ogden’s Limited was based in Liverpool and pioneered the inclusion of black-and-white real football cards in their ‘Guinea Golds’ brand.

Ogden’s produced the first Sheffield United card/sticker ever with their William Foulke card in 1897. Sadly, they spelt the legendary goalkeeper’s name wrong – listing him as W. Foulked. You could say it was a bit of a Foulk up!

W. D. and H. O. Wills were the first company actually to issue cigarette cards and brought out sets such as Ships and Sailors, Aviation and Butterflies before moving into football. They produced a series of “Our Leading Footballers” (1901) and included United players Harry Johnson (son of our all-time leading goalscorer) and Ernest ‘Nudger’ Needham. This set is extremely rare and highly collectable, with single cards still fetching up to £100 or more.

There were a number of companies that quickly followed suit, such as Marcus and Company, with the first dedicated football set, titled Footballers and Club Colours. They cleverly used painted chromolithographs to avoid paying copyright fees to professional footballers. Three Bells Cigarettes and Wills Woodbines produced sets in 1902 depicting Blades players, many of whom were England internationals, mostly in suits. In 1906 Ogden’s produced the first colour card for Sheffield United.

Taddy and Co. released its prominent footballers series and Cope Brothers released sets of Blades players between 1906 and 1914 before Churchman’s Footballers and Godfrey Phillips gave another dash of colour to cards. Images were mainly individual photos of the face rather than full-body or action shots. There were a number depicting players in suits rather than their kits too. Of course, the First World War meant there was a period during which production became limited, but in 1922 cards were given out in periodicals such as Sport and Adventure and Boys Magazine.

British American Tobacco became prolific around the mid-1920s, a period that also saw sweets and chocolate start to insert cards, with Crescent Confectionary being one such company. Lacey’s Chewing Wax and Chewing Gum also came to the fore, with United luminaries such as Fred Tunstall and Billy Gillespie featured.

The first cards were produced by Barratt and Co, a company that were still producing cards right up to the late 1980s. The well-known Lambert & Butler and John Player & Son were also involved in production. We saw companies such as Ardath produce caricatures of players and also painted portraits – which looked so realistic they appeared to be painted photographs. It was around this time that tobacco companies produced special albums that could be purchased from local tobacconists. This was to encourage the collecting of a particular series.

Production was scaled up to the extent that the cigarette manufacturers used dedicated in-house design and art studios.

Local newspaper the Sheffield Telegraph and Star joined in, giving out small photographic cards, free with each copy of the newspaper bought at Bramall Lane.

R and J Hill and the Topical Times magazine were two of the final purveyors of the football card before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The war brought a swift and permanent end to the traditional cigarette card. In 1940, the British government imposed strict paper rationing to support the war effort. Tobacco companies were legally prohibited from including cards in their packaging. When the war ended, ongoing economic austerity and the cost of materials meant companies never resumed inserting free cards into cigarette packets.

Part Two: Trading Cards & the Introduction of Football Stickers

1945–1985

Cards were still produced but tended to be packaged with sweets, bubble gum or chewing gum, such as Chix confectionery and Cadet sweets. Barratt and Wills continued to be at the forefront but the table-football game Subbuteo also issued cards via sales of accessories. Jimmy Hagan was number 47 in the famous footballers series in 1954.

Moving into the 1960s, A&BC chewing gum and other food sources such as Clevedon Confectionary & Quaker Oats came on board. At this stage the cards were quite varied, with some illustrations, some photographs and some cartoon versions being produced.

Around 1967–68, the first stickers involving Sheffield United were produced. The FKS Publishing company had a series entitled ‘The Wonderful World of Soccer Stars’ and our entire squad was featured. Although even these were not stickers in the true sense of the word, having to be fixed into the slots in albums, using glue!

Heading into the 1970s, a successful period for John Harris’s famous Blades side, we saw United being one of the most talked about teams in the land. Indeed, Marshall Cavendish depicted us in their top teams series.

It was in the early 1970s when perhaps the most famous sticker/card company to produce football memorabilia came into the public eye. Panini. Founded by brothers Giuseppe and Benito in Italy in 1961, they were the company that made the football sticker, and the albums they were inserted into, so famous. It was Panini that pioneered self-adhesive stickers and their first tournament album appeared for Mexico 1970.

In terms of Sheffield United, the 1971–72 season saw Panini release a full set for the club with the famous side of that era all depicted. They also had a Top Sellers series in 1972–73 which once again saw a full set of United players used.

There were still other companies jostling for position despite Panini’s entry into the market. Cards continued to be popular despite the sticker explosion. The A&BC Red Back cards featured detailed player biographies that then had a quiz question to check you had read the description.

The Sun newspaper produced 50 exciting 3-D Star Cards, with Alan Woodward chosen as our lone representative, making it even more galling he never won an England cap!

A&BC continued to be trendsetters when they adopted a Football Card Game. These game cards listed specific abilities or a numbered rating (like speed, passing, or shooting) assigned to a player, which dictated who won each round of play.

The same company continued with their individual player cards, but team badges also appeared for the first time – surprisingly, they had not been adopted before. Similarly, team photographs had not been commonplace on stickers or cards, with the focus being on individual head shots.

Americana was a German company, and its Soccer Parade series was introduced, and also in the mid-1970s, Barratt and Co made a return in terms of involvement with the Blades. This perhaps did not come as a surprise, as the company’s headquarters was now in Sheffield, being part of the Bassett group – which was based across the road from our city rivals in Hillsborough.

FKS continued its battle with Panini and tried to produce postcards alongside stickers and cards. A new company, at least to our shores, popped up in the mid-1970s. Topps were an American company founded in 1938 in Brooklyn and had produced American Football and Baseball cards in the States, but started to dip its toes into the market after seeing a UK market from which it could profit. Following legal battles, the Topps Company acquired A&BC and launched their own Topps-branded English football sets, primarily printed in the US and Ireland. Topps also started to introduce more action shots, featuring players on the pitch.

Panini and the Sun were both still prolific in this period, with the paper producing soccer cards. These were artist impressions of players. Sadly, these were not that accurate, not only in their physical likenesses but also in the basic details alongside the drawing. Card number 373 is supposed to show our Scottish international goalkeeper Jim Brown but they misname him Eric and call him a defender! After the early error for Fatty Foulkes, it seems even almost 100 years on, we were not important enough to get simple things correct! It gets worse. Card 642 in 1978-79 is supposed to be Tony Kenworthy. He is wearing a blue and white shirt. Perhaps this was simply a printing error?

The end of the 70s saw the Blades tumble down the leagues, meaning they were not in the wider football consciousness for a period. Companies were not going to produce cards or stickers for a side plying its trade in Division Three, and then Division Four. For a period of 3 seasons we did not have any card or sticker produced (1981–84). We finally broke out of our slump, and two promotions in quick succession saw us back in the Second Division. Panini did produce club badges and team shots but only the First Division sides had full sets of individual player stickers made. I always recall some of my Wednesday-supporting friends revelling in collecting stickers of the likes of Lee Chapman, Gary Megson and Mel Sterland, whilst my glee came when I got one of the measly two stickers produced for my club. It was even more humbling when the badge was shared with teams such as Shrewsbury Town or Portsmouth, depending which club sat alongside us alphabetically! At least we finally started to get shiny badges – always seen as the most sought-after stickers. ‘Shinies’ or ‘Foilies’ provided a great deal of excitement as the silver sticker glistened as you peeled the sticker wrapper back. To get your own club, even if shared, provided more excitement than it probably should have done to a young Master Deadbat!

Part Three: Mass Productions and Sticker Wars

1986–2026

Cards were on the wane but Barratt continued to provide small rectangular cards, tightly packed into their white candy-stick packets, collaborating with Match magazine. Once again, United did not have many of these produced, remaining in the second tier. However, to get Steve Foley, Colin Morris and latterly Tony Agana or Brian Deane, felt like a real coup amongst my schoolmates! The description on the reverse of Deane’s card is extraordinary. It states that he produced his own special form of ‘Black Magic!’ Different times indeed!

The Orbis Football Collection completely passed me by, which is odd for someone who wanted everything connected to United as I was growing up. These were produced as part of a weekly magazine series in 1990–91. In much the same way as you could collect sets such as the National Geographic or Build Your Own Spitfire, Orbis produced a ring binder/hard folder, that could be filled with stickers. A new collection came out each week that the local newsagent could reserve it for you to collect.

United were back in the big time in 1990–91. One of the most fantastic things about getting promoted was the fact we would have a full two-page spread in the Panini annual album. This would of course continue for as long as we were in the top flight, even if the manufacturer would change during this period. Stickers cost 25p for a pack of 6. I recall once my Mum buying a whole box for me for Christmas which helped me get well on my way to completing it. Sadly, I often still had to send a stamped addressed envelope to Panini UK to get the stickers I needed to complete the collection, as I was sick of getting the same swaps. I must have got Paul Beesley around 17 times!

It did seem like stickers ruled the world, with the big World Cup albums always being sought-after collections for me, so it was a surprise I got hooked by another card set that came out in the early 1990s. ProSet were a Dallas-based trading card company that had been successful in the production of NFL cards but had maybe seen the foray that Topps had enjoyed in the 70’s and produced 328 UK football cards. What made this collection unique was that whilst it did focus on the top division clubs and United were given 12 cards, it also featured individual players from some lower league clubs. These cards were high-quality productions with vivid photographs, detailed descriptions and were sturdier than anything produced before. There were additional cards that came out in the 1990–91 season, after Christmas. I proudly managed to complete the full set, although again resorted to sending away for an unknown Sunderland player called Hauser, that had eluded me. I still have these amongst my old United programmes. The second series upped the quality even more and United, again, had a full set of players and a fixtures card.

The Sun Soccer Stickers were given out in the newspaper as the game had a renaissance, with bigger crowds and interest, after the success of the national side in Italia ’90. Panini continued to operate but we also had another new name, that of Merlin. This company was set up by former Panini executives after Robert Maxwell acquired Panini. Their Shooting Stars set in 1992–93 had 14 United cards.

Topps had been away from the game but started to see the game’s growth in the 1990s and we had 6 Stadium Club Cards in 1992. It was a halcyon period with Panini, Merlin, Topps, Barratt’s, ProSet and the Sun operating side by side – and it was becoming an expensive hobby for a 13-year-old boy living on the outskirts of Sheffield.

The birth of the Premier League is often seen as a watershed moment. Sky TV took over much of the coverage of the game from terrestrial television but there were also changes in the sticker/card markets. Merlin were given the rights to produce the stickers for the new league. This dealt a real blow to Panini, who had been the official partner of the Football League for a long time. Bizarrely, even though Merlin produced their first Premier League collection in 1992–93, Panini still produced a collection, even though it was unofficial, called Football 93.

Merlin were bought out by Topps in 1995, but the Blades, of course, had suffered a heartbreaking relegation. The one consolation was that Panini were now producing stickers for teams in the Football League. The Richards Collection brought out cards of old footballers in 1997 seeing players such as Jimmy Dunne and Bob Barclay and JF Sporting Collectibles continued this nostalgia with its own Popular Footballers set, featuring Tommy Hoyland and Graham Shaw, amongst those you could collect.

With the popularity of personal computers and video games, youngsters were much more likely to play on their Sega/Nintendo and then PlayStation/Xbox, with FIFA, Pro Evolution and Championship Manager/Football Manager taking over from the simpler pursuits such as Subbuteo and card/sticker collecting.

The Blades were unable to return to the Premier League for over 10 years but finally, in 2006–07, Neil Warnock managed to achieve promotion. This return saw United once again feature in card and sticker collections. The MagicBox Shoot Out set featured 22 Blades players. The fact that a new name came onto the market showed there was still an appetite for this type of hobby.

Merlin were still involved in the Premier League sticker collections, and United had 21 player portraits, a club badge, squad, kit and star player for this single season.

Topps also produced a card set of 13-card set for that brief return to the top flight. Whilst United’s foray back into the big time was brief, they could at least still buy stickers as Panini continued to operate in the Championship. This did not continue and as United had another extended spell out of the limelight, the collections moved to Match Attax, a series from Topps. From collecting unique cards to engaging in strategy-filled matches, Match Attax was marketed as providing endless fun for enthusiasts. There were many types of cards for the top players and teams but the Blades were not among them so, for a long period, had nothing produced at all; —a far cry from the early 1990s.

In 2018, Panini was back at the top table and once again the official supplier to the Premier League. United returned the season after and Panini were now prolific in producing cards and stickers in many guises. The Adrenalyn XL, Chronicles, Obsidian, Prizm, Immaculate and Impeccable Series saw a huge number of trading cards featuring the Blades. This was an exhaustive collection – almost too much – but clearly there was a market for it. If you wanted, you could collect eight different Lys Mousset cards – to show the range they offered!

We also had the traditional sticker album brought back – the first time we had seen it for a long time. Having a young son meant I had an ‘excuse’ to ‘collect,’ and we filled the two-page United section fairly quickly although I felt the expense, in the same way my own parents must have. We also had the return of the much-loved, ‘Shiny’ badge, in the renaissance of the sticker-collecting habit.

The collections expanded even further in 2020–21, the Blades second season back in the Premier League, but Covid had an impact on everything, including buying habits. However, it seemed the demand still remained, even with people’s shopping habits changing to online purchases. I stopped my own son buying another album, citing the vast cost. Maybe I knew what was going to happen, in terms of our disastrous season behind closed doors?

It was only two seasons before United won promotion again and the sizeable number of cards and stickers you could purchase were available again for our club. There were various silver, gold, embossed, and ‘rare’ cards to obtain. We still had the traditional sticker album alongside these but once again I resisted the urge to start collecting as a packet of only five stickers now cost £1! The stickers also seemed to be smaller, a trend we saw with other products like chocolate and crisps.

As the Blades yo-yo years continued, so did that of the sticker licensing companies. Topps, now in collaboration with Fanatics, who had bought Topps for $500 million in 2022, took over providing cards/stickers for the Premier League. Panini, though, refused to bow out and, once again, opted to get involved with the Championship, bringing out an album for 2025–26, so the Blades were still ‘in the game.’

The future of this hobby remains to be seen. It is remarkable how it has managed to stand the test of time, through two World Wars, a global pandemic and the introduction of so many newer, alternative pastimes. The fact that people, young and old, still relish the feel of a card/sticker in their hand, attest to its longevity and timeless appeal. In much the same way as books have remained sought after despite the introduction of e-readers, and radio has remained popular alongside television and streaming, it seems probable that, in some form, the football card and sticker will endure for many years to come.

Subscribe now

Sticking, twisting, gambling with our future.

Sam Parry

That’s how it all feels to me right now. And speaking of gambling…

I’m a member of a Telegram chat covering every club in the EFL. It is a nice place to be—rather like Twitter used to be. Arguments, when they happen, are treated as arguments should be: a back-and-forth of logical reasoning until someone concedes a point or both parties accept that they disagree.

The other day, after the bookmakers updated their relegation markets, somebody in the group said, and I’m paraphrasing: “I’m interested in Sheffield United to go down at 40/1.”

My response was not one of shock.

Forty-to-one implies a relegation probability of around 2.44%. Looking at Sheffield United’s squad as it currently stands (plus off-field questions), I am not convinced the risk is quite that small.

That is not the same as predicting relegation. Chris Wilder is rarely prone to making a team worse than the sum of its parts. I would only seriously consider the bet if I did not rate those parts—and not rating United’s playing staff is a reasonable position for many outside observers to hold. We are not outsiders, though. How do we parse what’s happening right now?

Do we need to rebuild?

This may fly in the face of what most people think, but transfer windows—other than when a club has been relegated or promoted—should not be defined by “rebuilding”.

In fact, I wrote a piece on NTT20.COM about how 66% of teams finishing inside the play-offs (25/26) across the Championship, League One and League Two signed fewer players than the average club. More compelling still, six of the seven automatically promoted teams signed fewer players than the club average of 11 summer signings.

Sheffield United don’t need a rebuild, but I’m worried we’re being forced into one. The off-field stuff is boringly predictable and hugely concerning. The squad is bulky in numbers and light on true quality. The question that lingers about our squad is who can be trusted to play a significant part across a full season. Simply put, we cannot afford to rid ourselves of our most trusted assets. We need a strong core.

Who are they?

Two buckets

I would divide the squad into two broad categories: players we can reasonably trust to provide more than 2,000 competent Championship minutes, and players we cannot.

By “trust”, I mean a combination of availability, likely selection and proven performance—by which I mean being at least capable at Championship level. Those players I “question” might not be down to their quality.

The figures below are league minutes from last season.

Bucket of trust: 2,000+ minutes

• Japhet Tanganga — 3,735

• Callum O’Hare — 3,458

• Sydie Peck — 3,297

• Harrison Burrows — 2,960

• Femi Seriki — 2,559

• Gustavo Hamer — 2,502

• Andre Brooks — 2,442

• Tyler Bindon — 2,029

Bucket of questions: fewer than 2,000 minutes

• Tyrese Campbell — 1,886

• Patrick Bamford — 1,823

• Mark McGuinness — 1,804

• Thomas Cannon — 1,721

• Jairo Riedewald — 1,481

• Sam McCallum — 1,208

• Oliver Arblaster — 893

• Tahith Chong — 669

• Joe Rothwell — 431

• Ryan Oné — 127

• Jamie Shackleton — 21

The split is not a definitive judgement on quality. Some of the players in the second bucket proved to be excellent signings or major contributors - see Patrick Bamford. At the same time, the difference between contributing within your minutes and actually playing enough minutes to make a telling contribution is… well, telling.

There are far more questions than answers within this squad. It is bloated, less talented following the departure of Andre Brooks and reliant on several players whose fitness, form or role cannot yet be taken for granted. That’s a worry.

A promotion campaign cannot be built around a handful of near-certainties and optimism. It cannot be built around the injury-prone. Even a mid-table finish, as achieved last year, becomes less likely if we do not solidify our foundations. And a relegation campaign? That’s built on churn and chaos.

What of our squad, then?

Rating the Squad

Here I want to run through the key areas of our squad and take a judgement on:

• whether we’re well set with the players in the building;

• in need of additions

• exposed if players leave

Central defence

Japhet Tanganga had his critics, but his availability was exceptional. He was a centre-back who could be relied upon to start almost every week, and that sort of continuity is vital. Happy there.

Mark McGuinness appears capable of being a solid third-choice option, but lacks the pace and on-ball quality to be the foundation of a strong Championship defence. Jamal Baptiste has had some minutes in pre-season and did well on loan for Rotherham, albeit in a relegation season.

Until we do some business, then, United will begin the season without a strong central defensive partnership. For a team with ambitions towards the top end of the division, that is not sustainable - or else the ambitions aren’t.

Full-backs

Femi Seriki played a substantial number of minutes last season and was one of United’s better and more exciting performers.

Sam McCallum’s injury was not a recurrence of a previous problem, so there is some reason to trust his availability. We can certainly trust Harrison Burrows, who recovered from a difficult start to contribute either a goal or an assist roughly once every four games.

For now, I am not overly worried about this area.

That would change quickly if either Burrows or Seriki (or both) were sold. Both provide attacking threat, energy and progression from wide areas. Losing one—or both—would not simply reduce the squad’s depth; it would remove a major source of creativity.

Wilder has also spoken about Jamie Shackleton having a role this season. Shackleton has played only 981 league minutes across the past three campaigns. I have sympathy for his injury problems, but I have not seen enough underlying quality to justify relying on him for a meaningful role. Tom Davies, for comparison, was also an injury risk, but there were moments when his talent made the gamble understandable. I do not currently feel the same way about Shackleton.

A brief pause to ask you a question…

Do you value what we do? Do you think it matters that every writer who contributes to The Pinch is paid? We want to keep publishing articles and recording podcasts, but we can only do that with the support of our readers. A subscription costs £40 per year or £5 per month. If you enjoy our work and would like us to keep making it, please consider supporting The Pinch.

Subscribe now

Central midfield

Oliver Arblaster could make good on his pre-injury promise, while Joe Rothwell, with proven fitness, might become a genuine asset.

There is also the curious case of Jairo Riedewald. United scored more frequently with him on the pitch than with any other player and conceded less frequently too. Those numbers require context—he came off after the hour in every game—but they make the decision to release him and re-sign him permanently look a little odd.

Sydie Peck has already become a hugely important player and is rightly attracting interest from higher up the pyramid. If he stays, his minutes/performance level can be trusted.

All rosy then?

No, the wider shape of the midfield is more concerning.

It is a technical, low-energy collection of shuttlers and passers. The problem is not necessarily a lack of decent players. It is that too many of them offer similar things.

United need greater height, more speed and somebody capable of covering ground aggressively without the ball. Ideally, some goals too: remember goal threat from midfield?

There are also, quite simply, two midfielders too many on the books, given that we still have to add in this area.

Wingers and attacking midfielders

Callum O’Hare and Gustavo Hamer can both be trusted to play significant minutes, assuming they remain at the club.

That final qualification matters.

The pursuit of Lewis Dobbin appeared to suggest that one of O’Hare or Hamer might leave to accommodate another attacking addition. United’s interest raised an obvious question: what exactly is the plan for the players already here?

I cannot believe Wilder will entertain another full season of Hamer playing off the left. United struggled defensively with him there, while simultaneously not limiting one of the three most creative attacking players in the Championship. Gus was, to quote Olivander from Harry Potter, “terrible but great” — I’m always pro-Gus, all of the time (just ideally not on the left).

If Hamer stays, his most logical role is as a number 10. If O’Hare stays, his most logical role is also as a 10. That is a question we will see answered soon.

Romelle Donovan at least provides another body following Brooks’ departure, although he is a loan player rather than an asset United own. He should become a useful member of the squad, but asking a 19-year-old to immediately become the side’s principal wide threat would be a strange gamble.

Wilder’s comments about Seriki last season are also relevant. He said: “Femi isn’t going to take you to the top of the division. Femi isn’t going to play 46 games for you in the Championship.”

Whatever the context, Wilder has not always demonstrated deep trust in young players. It would therefore be surprising if United entered the season expecting Donovan or Ryan Oné to carry a major attacking burden without another addition.

Oné’s position is itself uncertain. Is he viewed as a winger, a forward or an out-and-out striker?

My suspicion is that he will begin the season as the reserve left-winger, with opportunities from the bench to prove himself. Personally, I think that would be the wrong call. I would prefer to see him developed centrally, competing with one of Tyrese Campbell or Thomas Cannon to support Patrick Bamford.

Strikers

Strangely, this position may be United’s strongest.

There is no doubt that Bamford, Campbell and Cannon are talented Championship forwards whom other clubs in the division would love to have—never mind all three. Oné may well belong in that group too, given how he performed in League One last season.

All four outperformed their expected goals last season and can be trusted in terms of their finishing, if not necessarily their all-round contribution to games.

The problem here is not really one of trust, but of getting the best out of three or four players vying for a single position.

Can Bamford stay fit enough to lead the line consistently? Probably. Can Campbell rediscover the explosiveness of the previous season after last year’s intermittent contributions? If he can, we have one of the best in the division and would realistically only need 15 to 20 games out of him. He will probably always carry niggles and is one of the few members of the squad—owing to his position—where we can tolerate his lack of availability.

Can Cannon, our new number nine, establish himself as a regular starter rather than a useful option? I’m sceptical.

And do the three senior forwards complement one another well enough to justify carrying them all?

The ceiling is high. Bamford remains an intelligent and technically gifted striker. Campbell can stretch defences or remain peripheral, but so long as he gets chances, he usually performs well against his expected-goals numbers. Cannon has previously shown that he can score regularly at this level. Oné has the raw skill set to explode.

But none can currently be treated as a certainty for 35 or 40 starts—not necessarily because of fitness, but because there are three or four of them vying for one spot.

Is there a chance we play two strikers in a 4-2-2-2? I think there might be, and that would solve the Hamer and O’Hare question too.

So, is 40/1 value?

As the squad stands, I do not believe Sheffield United are likely to be relegated. Neither do the bookmakers at 40/1. Perhaps they are not factoring in off-field issues, though.

Do I think 40/1 is a little too big and therefore represents good value? Possibly (see off-field stuff). Otherwise, it comes down to squad building, and squad building remains an unanswered question.

In the case of Andre Brooks, Sheffield United have swapped something proven for something unproven. No matter how you rate his quality, he proved himself capable in this league over a substantial number of minutes.

Further transfers like this are a scary thought. It would be a huge gamble to swap the trusted for the untrusted, the tested for the untested, the known for the unknown.

If we were to lose another one, two or three of the trusted players—Japhet Tanganga, Callum O’Hare, Sydie Peck, Harrison Burrows, Femi Seriki or Gustavo Hamer—my concerns would begin to balloon. 40/1 would start looking good value indeed, no matter who the replacements are, because stability is the handmaiden of success, not churn, not rebuilds.

As it stands, I’m more confident than not that this team will make the top eight and therefore secure a play-off place. That faith could be shaken rather quickly.

How much faith do you place in this squad? How much faith do you place in this board? How much faith do you place in the transfer window? How far can we trust a team and manager that only finished 13th? Answers on a postcard.

Leave a comment

We’re back Formlining…

Riley’s away on holiday, but there’s no streamlining of the pod squad. The same cannot be said of Sheffield United Football Club.

After a mini summer break — during which we continued to publish articles, podcasts and pulled together a fanzine — Sam and David reconvene to work through an oddly busy and not entirely reassuring Blades summer.

From Alan Knill’s departure and Phil Jones’s arrival to the release list, André Brooks’s move to Norwich, Jairo Riedewald’s return and Romelle Donovan’s arrival on loan, there is plenty of squad reshaping to discuss. There’s also the small matter of Seamus Coleman training with the club, the transfers that may or may not happen and how many more players United actually need.

Off the pitch, we tackle the £35 million question: the winding-up petition issued against the club’s former parent company, another change to the ownership structure and the communication vacuum that continues to surround Bramall Lane.

So, not for the first time, we go again. Are there reasons to be cheerful ahead of the 2026/27 season, or are United already storing up problems for the next one?

Paul Kemp

Differences in opinion on Sheffield United are not a new thing amongst us Blades. You only have to see the divisiveness on various socials when looking at any new signing, managerial shake-up or even the announcement of a new kit to see this. However, there are certain things we are, well, united over. Those dyed-in-the-wool opinions that even the pro and anti-Wilder brigade can find common ground over: Billy Sharp is a legend; the Kop toilets are awful; Wednesday fans are obsessed with attendances; Munchies on Shoreham Street closing (with the loss of match day roast pork cobs and roast potatoes) is a travesty are a few such examples.

We also tend to come together as a fan base when discussing absolutely awful players. From Dean Hammond to Lee Baxter with a smattering of Jonathan Hunt in between, we have had some universally-accepted dross over the years. One such player, though, is the basis of my unpopular opinion, a sole voice going into bat for none other than Mr Ashley Stuart Ward. A player that fans of Barnsley, Norwich and Derby may hold fond memories of, but one who was past his best and frankly terrible for us. Alas, despite this undisputed fact, it will always raise a smile when I think about him in a Blades shirt.

For my rationale behind this, let me take you back down ‘Memory Lane’ (podcast plug) to the night of 2nd March 2004, when Neil Warnock’s United took on a Millwall side that was undefeated in the calendar year. An unremarkable mid-week game for most in attendance, apart from someone attending not only his first Sheffield United match but his first ever football match. That someone was my work friend’s 20-something year old cousin Rashid, over from Punjab for a couple of weeks on his first trip to the UK and desperate to watch a football game as an avid sports fan. My colleague knew I was a Blade and asked if I could take him along: they’d invite me to a family party with lots of amazing food the day after to say thank you. I naturally jumped at the chance.

Rashid was a lovely chap from Mohali, and was excited to see something other than the one-day international cricket he had previously attended back home. If you’ve ever seen a cricket international in the sub-continent, you will know the crowd is a crescendo of noise from horns and whistles as the locals dance in between wickets and runs. So, with this in mind, I managed his expectations about the atmosphere he would experience inside a three-quarters full Bramall Lane for a dour Tuesday night league game.

Despite it not being the most thrilling of encounters, for the first 50 minutes of goalless tussling Rashid was really enjoying the experience. He liked the Greasy Chip Butty and particularly liked how nice and comfortable the seats in the stands were. Given we were on the Kop, this probably says more about the state of the old PCA Cricket Stadium in Mohali than it does about our cheap seats.

The game was meandering to nothingness when it all suddenly changed in the 58th minute. Jagielka played a one-two with Tonge and whipped in a cross that Ashley Ward managed to somehow bundle ungainly over the line. At this point of extreme excitement, my hitherto cricket supporting first-timer not only jumped up to cheer spontaneously with the rest of us but let out a piercing, blood curdling scream which was half Hammer House of Horror and half teenage fan at a One Direction gig.

I will always remember the moment, as everyone in a nearby radius on the Kop suddenly stopped celebrating and looked at my wonderful guest supporter out of a mix of concern and curiosity. At this point, as the crowd becalmed and before Gary Sinclair had even started to announce the unremarkable goalscorer, Rashid proceeded to pull one of those cheap, extendable party streamers out of his pocket (presumably from supplies for the aforementioned family party) and gave it a good four or five blows with the gusto of someone who had just seen Sachin Tendulkar score a century against Pakistan. This coming together of two supporting, sporting cultures caused much mirth and merriment amongst the regulars near the goal on Row J and it remains the best celebration of a goal I’ve ever seen and heard at Bramall Lane – you can keep your limbs!

By the time, five minutes later, that Andy Gray scored the second, I had given him a bit of feedback and Rashid toned it down somewhat to a good old guttural cheer. His first (and presumably only) Sheffield United game ended in a 2-1 victory after a certain Paul Ifill had pulled one back with a stunner. Rashid celebrated the full time whistle with another blow of his horn, and now, whenever I hear the name Ashley Ward, rather than hate him for being a useless, immobile, constantly-injured has-been, I can’t help but smile with fond memories of the time my friend’s cousin brought his own mini vuvuzela to BDTBL. Ashley Ward – a legend to this particular Blade forever.

I’m writing this the day after Andre Brooks was sold to Norwich City, which, for me, was not only a sad moment, but an epic reminder that when you create a fanzine — and produce stickers — you may well end up featuring a player who has already left.

Pre-order now

That, ladies and gents, is exactly what has happened.

And do you know what? I’m okay with it. Hell, the front cover now borders on the ludicrously prophetic.

Anyhow, I’m writing this email to let you know that the pre-order window closes tonight at midnight. If you get your order in before the cut-off, then we’ll deliver your copy with the first batch before August. If you order after the cut-off, it will be in the second batch, posting on/around August 1st.

This email was written in the past. I am now taking a short holiday, and when I return The Pinch will be back in full flow, and no doubt we’ll have sold Gus Hamer and appointed a new manager and will be looking at redesigning the badge at the time of reading.

Tyrone James

As thoughts turn to a new season, and with the transfer window wide open (despite United yet to so much as dip a toe into it), I thought now would be a good time to preview my hopes and fears for the campaign ahead.

I should caveat this by saying things could look very different by the time we line up for another gruelling Championship season in mid-August. But, as things stand, here’s where I’m at.

Hopes

1. A Better Season

Surely we’re in for a better season than the last one… right?

Last season saw some brilliant highs and God-awful lows. That first win of the season at Oxford United, the last-minute winner away at Pompey, and, of course, brushing aside that lot with ease at Hillsborough on my birthday. The lows? Well, the first seven games of the season for a start, the Boxing Day battering at the STōK Cae Ras, or the late dropped points at home to the Swans which all but ended our faint play-off hopes.

That said, there was something quite nice about watching the end of the season shenanigans unfold without having to endure the usual heart palpitations and emotional trauma.

Boring? Maybe. Stress-free? Absolutely. That said, I’d give my left arm for us to be involved at the right end of things come next May.

2. The Return to Form

Ollie Arblaster and Tyrese Campbell. Two existing players who, if they can regain their form, will feel like new signings before we’ve even so much as flirted with anyone in the transfer market.

Arblaster has bags of potential, is one of our own, and surely will be in for a better season given his return to full fitness. And Campbell? Well, in his first season in red and white he looked every bit a solid upper-end Championship striker. A simple case of temporary form and permanent class? Who knows.

And then there’s Harry Souttar. I’m normally not a fan of bringing ex-players back, but it feels like there’s unfinished business there. His injury was cruel on both him and us at the time, and you wonder how that season would have turned out had he stayed fit. So, if the opportunity arises, we should absolutely be all over it. I also wouldn’t mind seeing a certain Kalvin Phillips getting another run out in red and white.

3. Chris Wilder

Chris Wilder is a Blades legend. It’s obvious, but it’s worth repeating. He dragged us out of the League One wilderness and took us all the way to a top-half Premier League finish. For many supporters – me included – it was the best period we’ve ever experienced following United.

Since then, well, it’s been a few genuine moments of brilliance and some core memories, contrasted with a couple of sackings, the manager having become somewhat a victim of his own success. Wilder 1.0 showed us what was possible; Wilder 3.0 is now somewhat cashing in the former’s credit.

Here’s hoping Wilder 3.0 recruits well this summer, trusts the players (those who choose to stay) and isn’t afraid to take the handbrake off when the situation calls for it.

Fears

1. Not Enough Quality

A spine of Cooper, Tanganga, O’Hare and Bamford is the foundation of a decent Championship side. But, as last season demonstrated, we’ll need considerably more quality than that.

It would be silly of me not to feel anxious about Andre Brooks departing prematurely, as he has done, but it’s no secret Wilder 3.0 didn’t fancy him. Shame. With one crown jewel already gone, I also expect Gus Hamer and Sydie Peck will depart for pastures new this summer, and whilst we should be commanding a huge fee for the latter, I’d be sad to see both go.

Our summer recruitment needs to improve the starting XI and provide competition from the bench. Every summer transfer window feels big, but this one is huge. One thing the better Championship teams tend to have is a settled side. Coventry City, Middlesbrough and Millwall supporters could probably have named the regular starting XIs of their teams week after week last season, and it’s that sort of consistency that gets you in the playoffs.

Once the transfer window closes, we will need to find our best team quickly, and stick with it.

2. Budget

We certainly don’t have a barrel of money. Have we ever?

This is the first season in a long time where we won’t have parachute payments to soften the blow.

That means rebuilding a squad with quality will be very difficult. As I mentioned earlier, we will almost certainly have to sell two or three of our valuable assets to balance the books, and it is critical we spend well with the little bit of pocket change we’ll get.

Like most Championship teams, I’m hoping we also use the loan market cleverly. There will be young, hungry, premium Premier League players available at some point and we need to make sure we’re first in line for them, as realistically there are players on our summer transfer shopping list that we’ll simply be unable to afford.

3. Chris Wilder… Again

Yes, somehow, Wilder manages to appear in both my hopes and my fears. My biggest concern is that he might have lost some of the spark that made him so successful in the first place.

Watching his pre- and post-match interviews towards the end of last season, there were times when he appeared increasingly frustrated and belligerent. Understandably so in some respects as the season drifted away from us, but it was definitely noticeable.

In fairness, he was quick to start talking about the next campaign and try to shift the focus forward, which was smart, but my worry is that we simply get more of the same, despite all the bullishness and supporter-pleasing soundbites. When we were good last season, we were very good. When we were bad, we were dreadful.

A consistent start is vital. Not just for our play-off ambitions, but for Wilder’s future too. Some supporters won’t want to hear it, but if we make a poor start, the mood will turn far quicker than many would like to admit. That’s probably blasphemy in some circles, but it’s also the reality we face.

As I said earlier, I hope Wilder 3.0 still has some of that magic left; the version capable of creating lightning in a bottle and making us all believe again.

Final Thoughts

All of this could look completely different by the time mid-August arrives. A couple of smart signings and the mood changes overnight. Equally, a quiet summer could make these concerns feel even more justified.

Right now, though, there’s a fairly even balance between optimism and uncertainty. Which, if we’re being honest, is probably the most Sheffield United thing imaginable.

Tyrone James

The not-so Secret Diary of an Away Day Blade, aged 39¾.

Defenders endgame.

After the chaos of the group stages and the Round of 32, our World Cup of Sheffield United defenders reaches the sharp end.

Join Andrew Hague, Sam Parry, David Beeden and Paul Kemp for part two, as the final 16 become eight, four, two, and then one undisputed winner.

Expect big names, small names, good players, bad takes, emotional campaigning, and at least one argument relying on turning the competition into a sexy XI.

Who goes all the way? Only one defender can lift the imaginary trophy.

Same line-up, different position.

Same line-up, different position.

After a certain legend went all the way in our World Cup of Strikers, we move onwards — and also backwards — as Memory Lane tackles a World Cup of Sheffield United defenders.

The players are randomised. The groups are stacked. Join Andrew Hague, Sam Parry, David Beeden and Paul Kemp for the group stages and Round of 32 in part one.

You’re not going to want to miss Jack Robinson vs Derek Geary.

Support our work. Buy a fanzine.

Sam Parry: I refuse to complain about the weather. But blimey, it’s scorching. And what else is hotting up this week? Our work on the All New DEM Blades Fanzine.

Here is a lovely mock up of what it’s going to look like.

The whole thing has been designed with real paint, real pens, real cutting and real sticking. Proper handmade stuff. And, should you so desire, there’s also a sticker bundle you can add to your order.

There’s now just one week left to pre-order.

Buying a fanzine for yourself, or for a friend, makes a huge difference to the existence of any Sheffield United fanzine in the first place — and to The Pinch too.

So if you’re a free subscriber and don’t fancy committing to a monthly payment, this is a brilliant way to support what we’re doing as a one-off.

Get your order in while you still can.

UTB

Sam Parry

Hot off the news desk: Alan Knill has left Sheffield United. A fact known for more than a week, though just publicised by the club in what appears to have been a classic game of tight-lipped owner twattery.

Anyhow, it’s a decision that will be judged on outcome. If United win a few games early in 26/27, there’ll be a quiet acceptance that the call was fair: “told you we needed some new ideas”. At the same time, poor runs of form are an inevitability during any season. As soon as we hit one, the verdict will be swift: “Wilder can’t do it without Knilly” - you can bookmark that one because it’s happening.

For good or for bad, the collective football brain behind Sheffield United will not be the same as last season. It will be Chris Wilder, Micky Collins, Gary McSheffrey, Matt Prestridge, Matt Duke and now Phil Jones. So, basically the same plus Jones but minus Knill.

How many times Jones and Collins have overseen first-team training sessions is anyone’s guess. I’ll take a stab: very few. But new ideas it is. Chris Wilder said so himself: “We are now looking to inject some fresh ideas into the group.” Sounds a bit painful, or else something that someone else wrote for him.

I’m digressing.

This article is interested in the three main on-pitch traits that define “Recent Chris Wilder and Alan Knill” — call it CWAK Thinking. I have defined those as:

1. Possession dominance

2. High pressing

3. Strong chance creation

Taking each of these, one by one, I will outline how those traits looked last season, and apply a bit of ‘yin and yang’ thinking to the situation. Because within each of those traits were also the seeds of some of our biggest weaknesses.

1. Possession dominance… but no ‘Plan B’

2. High pressing… but too little control in the chaos

3. Strong chance creation… but weak finishing

Next season’s success will likely hinge on how we attempt to solve the strategic and tactical problems that defined the 2025/26 campaign. Some good new players would help too. But we’re talking tactics today. So let’s have a look.

1. Possession dominance… no ‘Plan B’

Under Wilder and Knill, Sheffield United have always been a possession-heavy side. Okay we dipped below 50% possession in the top flight, but otherwise we’ve always had more ball on average in every season they’ve been in charge.

The last campaign was no different. When in possession, United tended to use the ball to play forwards much more than backwards in what was a mixed/direct (not long ball) approach.

“Forwards, not backwards.”

Compared to most opponents, that approach was possession dominant, but I wouldn’t say “possession heavy”.

Only eight Championship sides averaged more possession than United. Yet despite controlling the ball, United’s possession sequences lasted on average for just over 3 passes before they were ended by a defensive action, a stoppage or a shot. Among teams averaging more than 50% possession, only one side recorded fewer than our 3-ish passes per sequence.

“A lot of ball, a lot of giving the ball away.”

The basic formulation here is that in 25/26 we had a lot of the ball, but more often than not, for a short number of passes long. Why?

Part of that is down to the mixed/direct approach: we played forwards often, and if you pass the ball forwards, the opponent is more likely to get in the way.

Another reason might be that the attacking strategy was often straightforward: get the ball to our most dangerous players and let them do their thing. That is not necessarily a criticism. Gus Hamer, for example, was one of the most creative players in the division. Why wouldn’t you want to run games through a player who attempts difficult passes, takes risks and creates chances few others can see?

“Oooh Gus.”

The trade-off is that risky football produces turnovers. Hamer’s long-ball completion rate sat below 50%, while his overall pass completion hovered around 76%. The mistakes are accepted because the rewards are enormous: goals! And the bigger issue was what happened when Hamer couldn’t find the answers or wasn’t available to try to solve the problem.

United lost 22 games (the second highest in the league). In those losses, we too often struggled to leverage possession into any kind of advantage. A huge part of that was down to the predictability of our build-up: on the left, find Hamer and hope he can slide a good through ball or find room for a shot; on the right, work it to Brooks to carry the ball closer to goal, either cutting in, making a short pass or finding Seriki on the overlap.

That mostly worked to good effect against the poorest teams in the division, where our best players were technically superior to their opponents. In those situations, our possession dominance allowed quality to tell. Against those clubs, we could camp in their half — and we did. United spent a lot of time in the opponent’s third, more than most, more than anyone in fact… except Boro.

“In the opponent’s half.”

Any positive reflection on our build-up, though, is almost entirely centred around our ability to beat bottom-half teams, where our record was very good. Blimey, it was 2.00 PPG - an automatics-ish tally.

However, against the top 12 teams in the division, our record was dreadful. You would suspect that our failure to pick up points in these games had something to do with better teams preventing us from getting on the ball more often. Horror of horrors: that wasn’t remotely the case.

Let’s pause there: we pretty much had the same possession against top half (x12) and bottom half (x11) teams. We had more touches in the box against top half teams. And yet we won just 4 of 24 matches. Of course, we should expect a regression against better sides, but that’s absolutely bonkers.

Was that down to poor build-up?

I actually think our go-to build-up was pretty good, at times. The bigger issue was a lack of a go-to Plan B. What happens when you're struggling to break a side down? What happens when you’re chasing a game (in our case, probably after leading it in the first place). Our answer was lacking. Why?

Personnel for sure. A lack of bench impact, for certain. But also because every single side that played against Sheffield United went into the game knowing, with absolute certainty, that they wouldn’t be defending crosses. That’s a key bit of information available to every team, making their solution: force them wide, double and triple up on their combinations, and they’ll end up stuck.

“Blades don’t cross.”

If you’re the best team in the league, say Ipswich, you tend not to need a Plan B: you just let the quality tell. Sheffield United in 25/26 was what happens when you play this way without having a big enough quality advantage.

We lacked an alternative route to goal. There was little aerial threat across the XI. Few deep crosses. No equivalent of the old Norwood delivery that could make a defence think twice about dropping in by causing chaos in the box.

The issue wasn’t simply tactical. It was structural. Too much of the attack depended on a small group of exceptional players producing exceptional moments. But we’re not one of the top four sides in the division anymore — the reason for that has been spelt out on The Pinch and elsewhere a million times over. But when you aren’t the best, you need a Plan B.

The lesson for the post-Knill era is simple: add some variety. That could be through the recruitment of a new striker - ideally a big one. Or by getting Tyrese Campbell back into shape to play off the shoulder. But it’s also tactical, and I have two thoughts about our tactics.

For our forward players, we need to overload on one side sometimes. Just stick everyone wide. Make a set defence uncomfortable and confused. That’s how Boro do it. Cause a bit of chaos. Stretch a team.

For our central midfielders, whoever they are, I want to see the odd ball that’s different to the others. In cricket, it’s the possibility of a spin bowler turning the ball the other way that makes a batter antsy. In football, if you know a team won’t cross, you have one less thing to worry about. Is it impossible to throw a ‘wrong un’ into the mix every so often? Hey, it worked against Hull.

2. Strong pressing… but too little control in the chaos

If possession was, with caveats, one of United’s strengths, pressing was arguably our greatest one.

By PPDA (passes per defensive action), Sheffield United were the Championship’s most aggressive pressing side. We also began possessions higher up the pitch than almost anyone else.

“We’ll press where we want.”

---

PPDA is a stat that counts how many passes the defending team (in this case Sheffield United) allows the opposition to make before attempting a defensive action such as a tackle, interception, or a foul. The lower the PPDA, the more intense the press.

Start distance is the average distance in metres from a team’s (in this case Sheffield United’s) own goal line where their open-play possession sequences begin. The higher the start line, the higher up the pitch our possession begins.

---

The press was not random. United consistently tried to isolate goalkeepers and centre-backs, deny passing lanes and force rushed decisions. The numbers suggest it worked. We ranked near the top of the league for high turnovers leading to both shots and goals.

“Turn it over.”

There was perhaps no clearer example of our pressing abilities than the opener against Leicester, which definitely benefited from some horrific defending. But we forced that issue. We were the instigators, and as someone who enjoys front-foot football, I love this.

The problem, in other games, was what happened when the first press failed. High pressing naturally creates space. Push your team higher, and the distances behind you become larger. That gets even more chaotic when you’re pressing a team who’ve just won the ball back off you, and I think our counter-press is dumb.

The best teams negotiate the chaos and manage the risk. United often didn’t. And just like our crossing, the Blades ranked lower than every Championship side other than Sheffield Wednesday for goals conceded on the break.

“161 or 11% of all league goals were fast breaks”

When 1 in 10 goals are scored on the break, it’s a shocking indictment of our team that we never fixed an avoidable issue. Too frequently, particularly after losing possession high up the pitch, the team became chaotic. Players hunting the ball and dragging the shape all over the place. Midfielders abandoning runners. Defensive responsibilities becoming blurred. We so often failed to reset into a clear shape that - ho ho - every team wanted us to get higher up the pitch to unlock our obvious vulnerability. See here against Boro:

The Middlesbrough example is not particularly instructive; Boro’s elite players find a counter-attack with exceptionally good technique. But once they find a space to open up the counter, our response is this awful bees-to-honey approach where nobody takes responsibility for stopping the long pass or picking up the one and only long ball target.

As I said earlier, it’s yin and yang stuff. If you’re going to press like we press, you also have to commit more tactical fouls, recover shape quicker and make better decisions in transition. The best pressing teams are not simply good at creating chaos; they are good at controlling it. And I just don’t think we were smart enough off the ball all season long — see also Blackburn.

The big lesson? We conceded more goals from fast breaks than we scored from fast breaks. We allowed our possession in the final third to become one of the opponent’s biggest strengths. Our defensive players, including covering central midfielders, weren’t good enough or mobile enough to reduce the threat of counter attacks.

What do we do about it?

Either we recruit a profile of player to continue this high press, or we are going to have to rethink how much we press. The central midfielders need to be much more switched on to nullify opponents beating the press. Riedewald was the only CM to do this, but even he just stood deep to mop up, rather than actually running around - and now he’s gone.

This pressing issue is nothing new, by the way. The final paragraph in an article from Total Football Analysis about our play-off final defeat to Sunderland read: “Sheffield United succeeded in forcing plenty of mistakes with their high pressure, but they didn’t take advantage of those Sunderland errors enough to win.”

That raises the third and final question. If we created lots of chances from our press, and if we created lots of chances in build-up, how many more points would we have secured if we turned those chances into goals?

Certainly more. It all boils down to finishing.

3. Good chance creation… but too few chances scored

The final contradiction is perhaps the most frustrating. Sheffield United created chances. Lots of them. And perhaps we created enough to mitigate the wrinkles in our possession and our pressing.

We also missed chances. Lots of them.

“We’ll miss where we want.”

The relationship between big chances created and big chances missed is stronger than many fans would like to admit. It’s a good thing, normally. The best attacking sides usually appear high on both lists because creating chances is the difficult part — it’s better to have created and missed than not to have created at all.

Yet too often the final touch was missing. Ten of the sixteen outfield players to play more than 1,000 minutes underperformed their expected goals.

All our players, bar Bamford and Burrows, plus two strikers who didn’t play very much, a full-back who’s padding out his numbers with a worldie against Stoke and Jairo Riedewald, underperformed the chances they had. When you consider that we normally play one up top, there are actually very few finishers in this team at all.

On top of that, one of the things that simply must be flagged here is just how bad our centre-backs were at finishing the many opportunities handed to them from set-pieces. Sheffield United had the second-highest set-piece xG after Coventry last season, and scored just 16 goals from 21.44 xG. From 15.87 set-piece xG created by our opponents, we gave away 14 goals. We scored 5 headers all season! If we compare that tally with Middlesbrough, who had the 3rd-fewest headed all season, they scored 9. It’s not good enough.

But let’s not pin it all on the big, tall boys. The real issue was height across the team. Our squad composition is one of the worst in the Championship in terms of heading ability. Just look at the number of headed shots conceded (graph below): again, second worst behind Sheffield Wednesday.

“Too small?”

Clearly there’s a very simple solution to fixing the height issue: buy some big lads, and we stand to gain a huge amount in both boxes.

The other side of the finishing coin, and a positive note to (almost) end on, is that we can possibly factor in a few more good results next season based on the fact that creation is nine-tenths of the law, or something like that. That’s a very Brentford way of looking at it. But it hasn’t hurt them

Matthew Benham, Brentford owner, has said before that repeatedly getting into scoring positions tells us more about a player than whether they happen to finish chances in a small sample. Over time, finishing tends to regress. Chance generation is the more stable skill. And that is something we are very good at (fourth most big chances created last season).

Some encouragement then. Now, a miserable note to end on.

Conclusion

My advice to the Knill-less coaching team next year is thus:

1. Let’s recruit some better players

2. Some big ones

3. Some fast ones

4. And let’s try a few things tactically, like the odd early cross or pulling all our attacking players wide, to try and mix the build-up a bit

5. And let’s take a call on pressing; is it a net positive or negative?

6. And whilst we’re at it, let’s keep up the chance creation because that was good

7. And don’t forget the tall players

After that, I’d be saying to Mr Wilder that in an ideal world, we would settle the squad down. Because the final, and I think the most damning stat, is that only Callum O’Hare, Japhet Tanganga and Sydie Peck started more than 30 games outfield. That’s not a spine; we need to up that number to five or six, and that all comes before “fresh ideas” can be tested at all.

Jonesy, Collinsy, Prestidgey, McSheffrey-ey — over to you.

If you like this, please subscribe to The Pinch for free. Why not buy a fanzine and get a fanzine? Why not become a paid subscriber and help us out, but you don’t get anything in return, really.

Subscribe now

It’s World Cup season, sort of, so Memory Lane has decided to borrow the format and apply it to something far more important: Sheffield United players from history.

Join Andrew Hague, David Beeden, Paul Kemp and Sam Parry as they each take charge of one section of the draw, defending their players on whatever grounds they choose: ability, stats, memories, cult status, vibes, or outright nonsense.

Oh, and we’re going to record another one. Help us decide the position?

David Beeden

Prior to the Qatar World Cup in 2022, I penned an article about Sheffield United players who had represented their countries whilst plying their trade at the Lane.

As an addendum to this piece, I discussed whether the Blades had ever had any players go to the World Cup, whilst still actually being a Sheffield United player. It was slim pickings, with only six – that would rise to eight – after the 2022 tournament. However, only three have made it onto the grass and played in a World Cup game.

• 1954: Ted Burgin - England (Goalkeeper) – did not play

• 1958: Alan Hodgkinson - England (Goalkeeper) – did not play

• 1962: Alan Hodgkinson - England (Goalkeeper) – did not play

• 1994: Alan Kelly - Ireland (Goalkeeper) – did not play

• 1994: Jostein Flo - Norway (Striker) – played three games as Norway went out in the first round

• 1994: Roger Nilsen – Norway (Defender) – did not play

• 2002: Patrick Suffo - Cameroon (Striker) – played twice as sub, including being sent off against Germany. Bizarrely, he left United during the World Cup so technically only managed one appearance as a Blade!

• 2022: Iliman Ndiaye - Senegal (Striker) – played once as sub before starting the final group game vs. Ecuador as Senegal qualified. He then started the 1-0 defeat to England in the round of 16.

• 2022: Adam Davies - Wales (Goalkeeper) – did not play

Fast forward four years and we are set to add a player to this tally, with Tahith Chong perhaps an unlikely representative on the football world’s biggest stage. Curaçao are one of four new nations to appear at the tournament, joining Cape Verde, Jordan and Uzbekistan.

Alongside current Blade Chong, there are eight past United players involved. There could have been even more selected, but England chose not to take Harry Maguire, Aaron Ramsdale, Morgan Gibbs-White or Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Scotland opted not to pick Oli McBurnie, despite an excellent season for Hull that culminated in him scoring their promotion-securing goal.

Daniel Jebbison was a late cut from the Canada squad, after being named in the initial extended squad. Anel Ahmedhodžić has made himself unavailable for his country for the last few years. Yasser Larouci has fallen out of favour for Algeria, as he has spent the last season on loan in the Greek league.

Granted, the connection to the Blades may be historic and/or brief, but these links may still pique interest, including a great trivia question for the future in the former Blades player who is managing at the tournament. Answer: Georgios Donis, who manages Saudi Arabia. You may also recall that the late Alex Sabella managed Argentina at the 2014 World Cup.

Here are the Blades (permanents and loanees), from most to least recent, who are set to take part. Who will start, and who has the opportunity to make the biggest impact during the greatest show on earth?

Tahith Chong - Curaçao (Midfield/Attack)

Caps: 4 games (2 goals)

Profile

Tahith Jose Girigorio Djorkaef Chong actually played for the Netherlands as a youth player right up to u21 level. He requested to switch international allegiance to Curaçao, the country of his birth, in August 2025, around the time that he signed for the Blades. He scored twice on his debut in a vital 3-2 World Cup Qualifier against Bermuda and has played a further two games, but injury prevented selection in other games this calendar year until he returned for a heavy loss to Australia. He also started in their recent friendly defeat to Scotland, scoring a superb individual goal.

Potential Impact

Curaçao are not expected to qualify for the knockout stages, and to even register a point would be considered a success. Along with Haiti, they are the rank outsiders at 5000-1 to win the World Cup. A tough start against Germany is followed by games against two other sides much more fancied than Curaçao, and it would be hard to see them achieving anything but fourth and an early exit. Qualifying was a feat and Chong is joined by other players with English league experience in Juninho Bacuna (ex-Huddersfield/Rangers/Birmingham), Leandro Bacuna (ex-Aston Villa and others), Kenji Gorré (ex-Swansea), Sontje Hansen of Middlesbrough and Ar’jany Martha of Rotherham.

Chong will play and he might get a chance to impress if he sees enough of the ball. His future at United is uncertain, so it would work for all parties if he has any kind of impact. We can only hope he shows flashes of that recent Scotland goal, which could see him stand out and alert clubs who might hand us a load of money – the Karel Poborský effect, if you like!

Games

v Germany, Sunday June 14th, 6pm BST, Houston

v Ecuador, Sunday June 21st, 1am BST, Kansas City

v Ivory Coast, Thursday June 25th, 9pm BST, Philadelphia

Tyler Bindon – New Zealand (Defence)

Caps: 22 games (2 goals)

Profile

Bindon was only 19 when he made his debut for the All Whites and has won 22 caps in two years, including an appearance off the bench during a pre-tournament friendly against England. He played in the Olympics in 2024 and, despite having already played for three clubs in the UK, has been a mainstay at the heart of the New Zealand defence. His last start was in March, a 4-1 friendly win against Chile.

Potential Impact?

Like with Curaçao, you can’t see New Zealand progressing far in the tournament but the new enlarged format means they could potentially battle Iran for third place. However, even this might not be enough, with only eight of the third best teams from the 12 groups going through.

Bindon will be busy, and with his Forest future uncertain despite having two more years left on his contract, he will know a positive tournament may garner interest from sides even outside the UK. I am not sure United will go back in for him as, with Tanganga and McGuinness still here, Wilder will look for a more dominant centre back.

Games

v Iran, Tuesday June 16th, 2am BST, Houston

v Egypt, Monday June 22nd, 2am BST, Vancouver

v Belgium, Saturday June 27th, 4am BST, Vancouver

Harry Souttar - Australia (Defence)

Caps: 38 games (11 goals)

Profile

Souttar was a Scotland youth international but switched to Australia; his brother John, currently at Glasgow Rangers, will be travelling to the World Cup as part of the Scotland squad. Souttar scored twice on his debut, a 5-0 win against Nepal, and then scored another brace in his second game! His free scoring continued and he has averaged almost one in three – remarkable for a player at the back. He is the tallest ever outfield player to play for the Socceroos. He played in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and impressed at the 2022 World Cup.

Potential Impact?

He hadn’t played for Australia since 2024, when he was on loan at the Lane. He tore his Achilles tendon, meaning he was not available for club and country for over a year, but has started the last two international friendlies, playing the full 90 of a 1-0 loss to Mexico and 81 minutes of their 1-1 draw with Switzerland. He also recently returned for Leicester but it was too late to prevent the Foxes from plummeting into the third tier, despite a goal and some impressive performances.

Australia have selected him in spite of his injury issues, as he has been a dominant force for them. The group they are in presents a mixed bag: they might be the least fancied of the four, but there are no powerhouses in this group so I would not be shocked if they advanced.

Souttar will surely be looking to find a suitor – he has been linked with United and if he continues his rehabilitation then perhaps we might go back for him, as we look for that dominant centre back. However, if he performs well, then we might face competition for his services.

Games

v Turkey, Sunday June 14th, 5am BST, Vancouver

v USA, Friday June 19th, 8pm BST, Seattle*

v Paraguay, Friday June 26th, 3am BST, San Francisco Bay

Anis Ben Slimane – Tunisia (Midfield/Attack)

Caps: 41 games (4 goals)

Profile

Born in Denmark, Slimane was another who played for his country of birth in the junior sides, but moved his allegiance – he played for Tunisia at u20 level and then was picked for the full national side. He started two of their three games in Qatar prior to joining United. After his career somewhat stalled at the Lane, he has found a home at Carrow Road: he’s contracted with Norwich until 2028 and has shown some consistency after displaying only a few flashes of his ability with the Blades.

Potential Impact?

Another country who you do not envisage picking up many points. The three sides in their group all seem much stronger on paper. Slimane will have to work harder than he ever did with United, as his country will not see much of the ball, but he could get some opportunities on the counter attack.

He was a player that never seemed to last 90 minutes, so it will be interesting to see if this continues in the summer.

Games

v Sweden, Monday June 15th, 3am BST, Monterrey

v Japan, Sunday June 21st, 5am BST, Monterrey

v Netherlands, Friday June 26th, 12am BST, Kansas City

Auston Trusty - USA (Defence)

Caps: 8 games

Profile

Auston Levi-Jesaiah Trusty is now 27 and coming off the back of winning the Scottish Premiership title on the final day. His own performances were somewhat inconsistent, with errors occurring with alarming regularity. He has only played eight times over a three-year span for his country, but he did start in a 2-0 defeat to Portugal in April, and came off the bench for his country’s last two friendlies in preparation for the World Cup.

Potential Impact?

Trusty has not been a regular pick in the USA starting lineup. Former Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino has operated with three centre backs but has preferred Crystal Palace’s Chris Richards, alongside veteran Tim Ream and youngster Alex Freeman. Richards has picked up an injury which meant he did not start the Europa Conference final win for the Eagles but is expected to be fit.

Trusty will probably only play in the event of injuries and I am surprised they do not have any other players that they see as better options. Another former Blade, Cameron Carter-Vickers, may have been considered, but he has suffered with injuries. USA are a host nation but the pundits and experts do not see them going very far. They have probably had more talent and a deeper squad in previous tournaments and, despite the popularity increase of Major League Soccer, the understandable influx of foreign players has arguably come at the expense of developing young domestic players. The group they are in means it is not beyond the realms of possibility they progress, and they face Souttar’s Australia in a potential winner-takes-all game.

Games

v Paraguay, Saturday June 13th, 2am BST, Los Angeles

v Australia, Friday June 19th, 8pm BST, Seattle*

v Turkey, Friday June 26th, 3am BST, Los Angeles

Iliman Ndiaye - Senegal (Attack)

Profile

Ndiaye was, of course, the most recent Blade to play at the World Cup, whilst still on the books at Bramall Lane. He has continued the ascension of his career, despite his move to Marseilles not being the success he would have envisaged. Now a key man for Everton and drawing attention from a number of top Premier League clubs, Ndiaye has been a regular starter for Senegal. He was involved throughout the African Nations Cup last year, which saw Senegal win the trophy, before the events of the final saw the tournament awarded to hosts Morocco.

Potential Impact

Normally part of a three-man attack, alongside Sadio Mane and Nicolas Jackson, Ndiaye has operated on both sides. A mouthwatering clash against France at MetLife Stadium kicks off the campaign for the Lions. Ndiaye will line up against former Blade teammate Sander Berge. They finish with an all-African affair against Ivory Coast. Senegal have shown in recent tournament football that they can excite but perhaps lack structure and defensive organisation. They possess enough talent to get out of a tough group. For Ndiaye, he will look to continue to accelerate his reputation further and perhaps convince one of the World’s big clubs to take him on the next stage of his journey to the top.

Games

v France, Tuesday June 16th, 8pm. New York/New Jersey

v Norway, Tuesday June 23rd, 1am. Toronto * versus Berge

v Ivory Coast, Friday June 26th, 8pm. Toronto

Sander Berge – Norway (Midfield)

Profile

Berge has been a regular starter at Fulham since joining from Burnley two seasons ago, as the West London side have become an established Premier League outfit. Berge seems content with the Cottagers, being a popular figure with teammates and fans alike. Berge has been playing for his country for 9 years now, after making his debut at only 19 years of age. An almost ever-present for his country, he has amassed 64 appearances but only scored a single goal, and that was 7 years ago, against Malta. This is the first time Norway have qualified for a major tournament since 2000, as they surprisingly hammered Italy both home and away en route to qualifying for the World Cup.

Potential Impact

Berge plays in a midfield three with Martin Odegaard and Patrick Berg, with Berge being the defensive anchor of the trio, sitting in front of the defence. Norway relies a great deal on Erling Haaland for goals, of course, but he invariably delivers. Their group is not easy with tough opposition in Senegal and France, but they qualified with ease, winning all eight fixtures. They will be confident of getting out of their group and then, who knows?

Games

v Iraq, Tuesday June 16^th, 11pm. Boston

v Senegal, Tuesday June 23^rd, 1am. Toronto * versus Ndiaye

v France, Friday June 26^th, 8pm. Boston

Dean Henderson – England (Goalkeeper)

Profile

After watching a young Henderson play so well in his two seasons with United, I was convinced he would go right to the top. His route has been circuitous as he never fully established himself back at Old Trafford and had to have a loan spell at Forest, before finally moving to Crystal Palace. The last year has seen him win the FA Cup, Community Shield and Europa Conference League titles – the latter as captain. He has been a consistent performer for the Eagles and maybe Man Utd gave up on him too early, especially considering some of their goalkeeping issues in recent years. He is a fan favourite wherever he goes with his ability to connect with the supporters and lay it all on the line.

Potential Impact

England have had an undoubted number one in Jordan Pickford for some time but Henderson has moved ahead of others in terms of being the next in line with the likes of Ramsdale, Pope, Trafford and others not even being regulars at their club sides. I remain steadfast that Henderson eventually will usurp Pickford and be the England number one, but, for this tournament, he will be a backup and will probably not feature unless unfortunate circumstances befall our existing number one.

Games

v Croatia, Wednesday June 17^th, 9pm. Dallas

v Ghana, Tuesday June 23^rd, 9pm. Boston

v Panama, Saturday June 27^th, 10pm. New York/New Jersey

Che Adams – Scotland (Attack)

Profile

Seems a long time since Adams was with the Blades. He left in 2016 – ten years ago! Since then, he has been at Birmingham and Southampton, before making a surprise move to Torino, in Italy. He is in the 2^nd of a three-year deal. He scored ten goals in 2024-2025 and followed up with nine more this last campaign. He ended the season with a late equaliser in the Turin Derby against Juventus, which will of course have enhanced his reputation with Il Toro. In terms of his international career, Adams could have played for England or Antigua and Barbados but picked Scotland, with his maternal grandmother being from Edinburgh. He became the first black player to represent Scotland in a major tournament (Euro 2020). He started all three games in Euro 2024 but his country exited in the first round.

Potential Impact

Adams has started a lot of the qualifiers for Scotland, and they do not have an assortment of goalscorers. Lawrence Shankland has had an excellent season for Hearts, but the other options are Championship strikers in George Hirst (albeit just been promoted), Ross Stewart and Lyndon Dykes. Adams might get the nod, depending on what formation Steve Clarke plays. Scotland traditionally struggles at the big tournaments and a minnow, such as Haiti, have caused them problems before. Yet, this opening fixture and Morocco are not the hardest of opening games. Brazil, although not the side they were, will likely be too strong but Scotland do have a chance of finishing 2^nd in this group.

Games

v Haiti, Sunday June 14^th, 2am. Boston

v Morocco, Friday June 19^th, 11pm. Boston

v Brazil, Wednesday June 27^th, 11pm. Miami

Georgios Donis – Saudi Arabia (Manager)

Profile

Donis, who was the first Greek to play in the Premier League, for Blackburn Rovers, had a nomadic footballing career. Donis played 21 games for his country over a six-year span. He played 7 games for us under Steve Bruce, signing as a free agent, and recall him being quite an exciting winger, with one superb showing, albeit in a hammering at Ipswich at the end of the 1998-99 season. Sadly, Bruce took him to Huddersfield with him after resigning from the Lane. After finishing his playing career, he moved back to Greece and went on a remarkable coaching journey, taking in 14 clubs. He has spent time in his homeland, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. In April this year, he was named the new national team coach of Saudi Arabia, replacing the charismatic and popular Hervé Renard. This was a surprise change and will be a tough act for Donis to follow. He has only managed one game so far – a defeat to Ecuador – in May.

Potential Impact

Drawn in Group H alongside Spain and Uruguay, two sides with deep tournament pedigree, as well as the rapidly improving Cape Verde, Donis’ margin for error is minimal. The nation will want to lay down a marker ahead of being hosts, in 2034, as the game looks to develop even further in the Saudi Kingdom.

Games

v Uruguay, Monday 15^th June, 11pm. Miami

v Spain, Sunday 21^st June, 5pm. Atlanta.

v Cape Verde, Saturday 27^th June, 1am. Houston

Summary

A number of the players are expected to start, although the likes of Souttar, Bindon, Slimane, Chong, and their respective sides may not advance that far. Berge and Ndiaye might go deeper into the tournament in terms of escaping the group stages. Adams and Trusty are not guaranteed starters for sides that will struggle to advance. I would be surprised if we see any of our World Cup United players be involved as the tournament reaches the final stages, and maybe only Henderson, with England, might be around for the closing rounds.

Certainly, some of the former Blades are remembered more fondly than others. Berge, Ndiaye, Henderson and even Souttar contributed to successful sides. Adams was a young prospect who we made decent money on his sale. Others were not with United for that long (loans – Bindon; or did not work out - Slimane, Trusty), and the one that remains, Chong, many supporters would be happy for him to move on already, despite only signing last year.

As the World Cup moves to Spain/Portugal and Morocco in 2030, we will see if anyone joins the 9 players who have played for their countries, whilst still a Sheffield United player. It remains a very elite list, and the fact that only three (soon to be four with Chong) have actually stepped foot on a pitch at a World Cup, whilst still a Blade, is a damning statistic.

Keep an eye out for more World Cup writing and podcasts from The Pinch over the course of the tournament ⚽🏆

Hello. Sam here.

Like any sane person, I’ve been itching to combine my spreadsheet addiction with my overwhelming excitement for a World Cup I’ll barely be able to watch. Thankfully, David Beeden, Paul Kemp and the main man Andrew Hague have indulged my deepest desire.

Welcome to the World Cup of… what?

You’ll have to listen to this Memory Lane special to find out.

We’ve borrowed the World Cup format, and Sam’s spreadsheet has generated 48 Blades, sorted by position, then thrown them into a full tournament structure of groups, knockouts, arguments and inevitable injustice.

Andrew, David, Paul and Sam each take charge of one section of the draw, defending their players on whatever grounds they choose: ability, stats, memories, cult status, vibes, nostalgia or outright nonsense.

This is quick-fire remembering, World Cup-style. We aren’t simply pitting best against best. There are minnows, underdogs and, yes, a few actual dogs in the fight.

Part One takes us from the live draw through to the Round of 32. Episode Two will take us all the way to the final.

Oh, and whilst you’re here - we’re doing a fanzine again.

DEM Blades is back after three years away. The Summer 2026 fanzine is available to pre-order now, packed with Blades writing, photos, memories, nonsense and plenty more. You can order DEM Blades fanzine here.

DEM Blades summer special

DEM Blades is back

Three years after the last issue, DEM Blades is returning.

The Summer 2026 edition is currently being assembled by a ridiculous number of Sheffield United supporters, writers, photographers, designers, obsessives and conscripts. It’s all coming together faster than Adrian Littlejohn, or for those of you born after the millennium, than Oli Burke.

And, if you’ll forgive the lack of humility, it’s going to be superb.

So what’s inside?

Think Bochum. Think beyond.

Think European away days. Think moaning and non-moaning. Think words, pictures, Panini sticker nostalgia, fixture ticksheets and enough red-and-white detail to keep you occupied all summer.

We’ve got a Gus Hamer xG deep dive that will delight approximately sixteen stats obsessives. We’ve got some Bassett-era brilliance that everybody will enjoy. We’ve got new ideas, old memories and a few pieces that can only really be described as trivial madness.

In other words, it’s a proper fanzine.

More than anything, this issue is the product of a community. Every article, photograph, illustration and daft idea comes from people who care about Sheffield United. That’s what made DEM Blades special in the first place, and it’s what has made bringing it back worthwhile.

Please do put in an order if you’re interested. If you can share with Blades on WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter and anywhere else you can — that’ll help too.

After three years away, we can’t wait to get DEM Blades back into people’s hands.

Thank you to everybody who has ever contributed, encouraged us, bought a copy, or signed up to The Pinch.

Sam

Pre-order Information

This is a pre-sale.

The fanzine hasn’t been printed yet. You’re not buying something that’s already sitting in a warehouse. You’re helping us understand how many copies we need to print, pack and send. And we don’t have a warehouse anyway.

Print Run #1 (Pre-sale)

Order before 1 July and you’ll be included in the first print run.

• First-run copies will ship on or around 20 July

• Stickers are available during the pre-sale only

Print Run #2

Orders placed from 2 July onwards will be included in the second print run.

• Second-run copies will ship during August

• Stickers will no longer be available

Stickers

You can add stickers to your order for £2.00.

You’ll receive two A5 sticker sheets featuring DEM Blades artwork. The designs shown in product images are mock-ups and may change slightly before printing.

Why It Costs What It Costs

We’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the balance between quality and affordability.

We want to print on decent paper stock rather than the cheapest option available. Good printing costs money. Postage costs money. Packaging costs a bit less, but not much. Every copy also takes time to produce, pack and send.

DEM Blades has always been a labour of love, but it’s still labour.

Every order helps make this issue possible and makes future editions more likely. We’ve tried to settle on a price that lets us produce something we’re proud of without making it unnecessarily expensive.

Shipping

UK

• Free UK shipping on all orders

• Sent via Royal Mail Second Class

• Usually arrives within three working days after dispatch

International

• Flat-rate international shipping: £3.05

• Please be patient; once it’s in the hands of Royal Mail, we’re all at their mercy

Words: Sam Parry

A bit of exposure therapy for me over the weekend. I was covering the play-offs for the brilliant Not The Top 20 and saw, for the second time in twelve months, a VAR-disallowed goal at Wembley.

Bloody hell. That was triggering. So too was spending three days watching defeated fans of Middlesbrough, Stockport and Salford stream out of the stadium, shuffling along Wembley Way, only to be greeted by digital signs reading: “Congratulations Hull… Bolton… Notts County…”

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Chills and not the good kind.

Before and after the games, I got chatting to the other people working. And once conversations had moved on from the matches, and then from the weather (temps hit 36 degrees), we’d move on to the typical stuff.

“Who do you work for?” “Who do you support?” “What else do you do?”

I talked about The Pinch. I explained what we make, how it works, why we do it, and the bit that seemed to surprise everyone: that we, a club-level newsletter, pay our writers.

Okay, it’s not loads. Not “quit your job and move to Tuscany” money. But we pay them, and that is more unusual than I had realised in a FOOTBALL CONTENT WORLD.

It made me proud. There are plenty of fan sites that expect people to write for free, farming out trivial nonsense to new graduates because they can. Thanks to our subscribers, The Pinch doesn’t have to be one of them.

Subscribe now

And so this week, as I do every year, I sat down, made a list of everyone who has written for The Pinch over the last 12 months, and paid them for their work.*

That is the whole model, really. We are an independent Sheffield United newsletter with no expansionist ambitions, no ads, no special relationship with the football club. We just want to publish good writing, make good podcasts, share opinions we (or at least the authors) actually believe, and pay people for the care they put into it.

Everything we do will continue to be free to read and listen to. We like that. We like the honesty-box feel of it. Nobody is being locked out for not paying. But the reason we can pay writers is because enough people choose to.

So here is the direct ask: if you like The Pinch, and you can afford it, please think about taking out a subscription.

If £40 is too much in one go, monthly subscriptions are £5. And if you’d prefer to make a one-off contribution, you can do that through Buy Me a Coffee.

What’s coming up

We’re in the middle of a short summer break. It’s going to last until late in June. In that time, we’ll be planning the next run of pieces, getting some (frankly mad) podcasts in the can, and generally making sure The Pinch comes back fresh rather than frazzled.

I have a lot of things and ideas that I’m working on. Those include:

• Bringing back ‘Blades By Numbers’ so Sheffield United have the best club-level stats site in the world

• A “World Cup of Players” special for Memory Lane that involves an outrageous spreadsheet that has taken longer to code than the podcast could ever be

• Starting work on a monster Championship 26/27 preview

• Wearily sketching out ideas for a Gus Hamer tribute

• Oh, and I keep threatening to start a new fanzine - watch this space… maybe

Get involved

I’m currently working through a list of pitches - sorry that it takes so much time to get back to everyone. But now that summer’s here, I have a bit more free time to do that. And I’d love to hear from new people - you just need to reply to this email. Specifically, I’d like to read:

• Personal stories/anecdotes from days of yore

• A great tactical piece

• A strong opinion about what the club is doing right or wrong

• An article about the club’s history featuring an event or landmark moment that people may not remember

Also, if you have an idea for Memory Lane or would like to appear on Hang It In The Louvre - please do get in touch.

Right. Think that’s it.

Thanks for reading and subscribing. Huge thanks to David, Riley and Andrew — and of course, all our contributors across words and audio.

Catch you again for a good pinch of Blades stuff soon.

UTB Sam

*To any contributors reading this: if you haven’t been paid yet, check your email/Twitter DMs - I have contacted all!

One final Formline before we disappear for a summer lie down.

Sam, Riley and David review the season and answer listener questions before handing out the highly unofficial Pinch end-of-season awards — from best goal and biggest head loss to MVP and best win.

Along the way we revisit a Goldilocks season that somehow contained a six-game losing start, a 20-game spell as one of the Championship’s best teams, and a 13th-place finish that somehow felt both completely wrong and just right.

In Part Two of our look back at Sheffield United on VHS, we move into the 1990s. It’s a decade of survival acts, Wembley appearances, relegation heartbreak, and increasingly strange club videos.

Joined again by Paul Kemp and DeadBat, we revisit the season reviews, Christmas cash-ins, Brian Dean specials, and the gradual shift from grainy VHS tapes to the Sky Sports era. Along the way there’s Martin Tyler nostalgia, Dave Bassett appreciation, and stories of Wembley in 1993.

Leave a comment

Written by Sam Parry

Fans expecting a bang-average finish in mid-October were the eccentrics when Sheffield United were second-bottom, having lost 8 of 9 games. For the first time in ten seasons, mediocrity became aspirational.

This will have been a new feeling for the 14-year-old who took up their first season ticket in 2016/17, only now glimpsing the utter redundancy of a wasted campaign. Some might argue that two hopeless Premier League relegations were more disappointing. Some might pick me up on the fact that in 2017/18 we finished tenth and a good way off the play-offs, but even then, with four games to go, we were three points off fifth. The difference this season is not the annual frustration of being a fan; it’s the downgrading of expectation by off-pitch decisions and on-field meh-ness.

In the static years leading up to our promotion under Neil Warnock, or during our League One wilderness, performances and results were broadly stable, at least relative to themselves. You could tell whether we were in the fight or not by mid-October. This season, by contrast, was defined by volatility rather than sustained mediocrity. You have to look beyond the league table to see it, though, because our 66 goals for and 66 against expose little more than a middling campaign.

Yes, we were thirteenth when the music stopped. But the way it played out was more like utter volatility in nine stages: (1) Sheffield Wednesday form, (2) play-off form, (3) relegation form, (4) top-2 form, (5) play-off form, (6) mid-table form, (7) play-off form, (8) relegation form, (9) mid-table form.

Now that’s a question. And there’s a simple managerial answer that I won’t concern myself with. Neither will this review amount to a play-by-play of matches. Instead, I simply want to try to understand the season a little better using a lot of data underpinned by a fair amount of context. I want to avoid, as much as possible, using stats without that situational evidence. So here’s a timeline of events:

It’s easy to forget about the months missed by Peck and Riedewald. We forget Gus Hamer didn’t score until our 17th game. Most of us have erased from our minds the turgid Sellés-Wilder overlap between the 7th and 15th games of the season. Ultimately, our season is a tale of wasted time, but we shouldn’t let recent events colour our judgement of the whole.

1. Outcome vs Performance

The currency of football is goals. Scoring them wins games and creating the opportunities to score them, whether you actually turn shots into goals or not, indicates whether the underlying processes are any good. Oh, and turn all that on its head for conceding goals too.

The Blades scored 66 goals (ninth best). By tracking the cumulative average—adding each match’s goal total and dividing it by the number of games played—we can see how the side’s attacking output evolved over time before eventually settling around the 1.4 goals per 90 mark.

But if we’re going to think of goals as currency, then it pays to consider how we earn our dough: do we work too hard for every goal, do we possess such high-quality finishers that we score from relatively few chances, or are we profligate?

We can get a good idea by comparing the cumulative average of goals scored and comparing them with expected goals: a measure between 0.01 and 0.99 of whether a shot is more or less likely to become a goal based on shot angle, distance, body part and defensive pressure. It’s a measure of chances and their quality.

In many examples, underperforming expected goals for an entire season would suggest a lack of quality finishers. I don’t think Sheffield United in 25/26 are representative of that assumption. Our season-long underperformance is utterly inconsistent, formed of missed chances in many games and superlative finishing in others.

Sheffield United averaged a 55 per cent share of the expected goals. Over 46 games, this tells us we consistently created more and better chances than our opponents, which, as we know, is not a representative pattern. When we were good, we were very, very good. When we were bad, we were horrid.

Still, 55 per cent would suggest that, from a total of 132 goals for and against, an expected dispersal, not accounting for variance, would give 72 goals to the Blades and 60 to our opponents. Point of fact: we shared it out equally: 66/66. This was not down to chronic underperformance but chronic instability—it was a season of flux, and we fluctuated wildly, especially at the start and end of the season.

I listed some of the fluctuations in the Timeline (See above), but none are more pointed than Michael Cooper’s drop off. Now there’s the next part of the story. Because if goals are currency, then what kind of value are we getting on the exchange?

When it comes to goals against, we brought down our average over time, the inverse of our goalscoring over the season. Was this a reasonable return? Should we have conceded more or fewer?

Once again, when comparing GA and xGA over an entire season, there appears to be consistent underperformance at play. And once again, the season average doesn’t tell us about chronic inconsistency. This does 👇

It has been a season of regression and progression. Dips and rises. Ups and downs. However, when we look at our under/over performance on a game-by-game basis, three things strike me as being rather noisy. What would have happened if these three things were not the case?

1. Michael Cooper’s 12.5 xG swing

   1. 24/25 Goals Prevented: +5.7

   2. 25/26 Goals Prevented: -6.8

2. 13 different defenders used over the season

   1. 8 errors leading to goals/22 leading to shots

3. Luck… (yes, luck!)

One of the reasons expected goals are maligned is that they do not factor in the context. They are, I would argue, a valuable representation of chances created over time. But on a match-by-match level, other factors influence outcomes, and luck (or variance) is one of those factors.

Have Sheffield United been unlucky?

Luck does not iron itself out over the season. For example, when Sheffield United were at their worst (losing the opening 7 games), only 7 of 23 other teams could have faced us, which means the other 16 clubs had to face us when we were, notionally, better. The inverse is also true.

We played the entire top 6 (Coventry, Ipswich, Millwall, Southampton, Middlesbrough and Hull) before the 8th of November and lost all 6. Why is the 8th of November significant? Because that’s when Femi Seriki was brought back into the side, and we began playing a more balanced 4-2-3-1/4-2-2-2, racking up points, goals and xG along the way.

Suppose we had played the top 6 when we were better? We can’t have done worse than 6 losses. And then again, we also had to face Norwich twice under Philipe Clement, not when they were awful under Liam Manning. We faced Bristol City twice in the first games for two new managers, avoiding their poor runs of form. We didn’t get to face West Brom under Eric Ramsay. We didn’t play Cov in their dip nor Preston in theirs. Fixture-wise, I think we’ve caught the bad end of variance.

But such is life, and it cannot be helped. What can be helped, and what is worth deeper investigation, is how we created and gave away chances.

2. Creating Chances:

Simple question. Where did our goals 66 come from?

• ⚽ Open Play: 38 goals (58%)

• 🎯 Set Pieces: 16 goals (24%)

• ⚡ Counter Attacks: 6 goals (9%)

• 🥅 Penalties: 4 goals (6%)

• 🔄 Own Goals: 2 goals (3%)

None of these percentages is out of the ordinary. Especially not for a side that, despite a dreadful season, posted some of the best attacking numbers in the league - we were able to score from open play and did not over-rely on set-pieces. What is surprising, really, is that we didn’t score more considering the positions we got into.

One of the defining features of this campaign, and 24/25 too, was our relative dominance when it comes to the number of touches in the box we record versus our opponents.

For a side who registered the third-highest touches in the box (behind Boro and Coventry), it’s notable that we returned relatively few goals (compared to those teams’ 72, and especially Cov’s 90).

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that we too often attacked a well-set defence. Meaning we allowed our opponents a greater opportunity to make blocks. That would tally. Of our total shots (600), 30 per cent were blocked.

Still, when a team consistently has more touches in the box than their opponent, and consistently out-shoots them too, then any right-minded person would expect them to finish higher in the table, not lower.

It surprised me just how often we outshot opponents. I thought, therefore, there would be some wrinkle in our shot distances. Maybe we shoot from range more than other teams. But no, our shooting positions are more closely aligned with, say, the best team in the league, Coventry (1st), than the worst (competent) team, Leicester City (23rd).

🎯 Shot Positions:

• 🥅 6-Yard Box: ⚔️ Blades 10% | 🔵 Cov 10% | 🦊 Leicester 7%

• 📦 18-Yard Box: ⚔️ Blades 57% | 🔵Cov 60% | 🦊 Leicester 52%

• 🚀 Outside the Box: ⚔️ Blades 32% | 🔵 Cov 30% | 🦊 Leicester 41%

With the 7th-most shots on target in the league coming from the 4th-best xG, Sheffield United were one of the Championship’s better open-play sides.

Aha! The glaring question of whether our much-talked-about set-piece improvement is actually true. In a word: yes.

• 24/25: 12 set-piece goals

• 25/26: 16 set-piece goals

The reality is that Sheffield United’s rolling five-game set-play xG peaked above 0.7 in the autumn before steadily collapsing through the second half of the campaign, bottoming out below 0.2 by spring. We still created chances overall, but one of our most reliable attacking routes quietly reduced in its potency over time.

Yes, set-pieces provided diminishing returns. But it’s important to note that we underperformed our expected tally of 21.44 by almost 7 goals when we had the second-best set-piece xG behind Coventry FGS! Gah.

Small regression = big regression

Many of the stats above paint us in a rather positive light. Perhaps too positive; the data jars with a general gut feeling that we weren’t dominant. Though I would argue that in some games – ultimately too few – we were.

The biggest issue is the smallest detail: we converted too few of our chances, though we created plenty.

Sadly, the reverse is not true. Opponents were pretty lethal, or if you like, Cooper and Davies were bad, which leads to the defence looking worse, because of course, when your GK barely stops shots, defences are more likely to make strange decisions. Oh, and some defenders were pretty honking, too. In short, we conceded too many from the chances we gave up.

And again, it comes down to small margins.

In a brilliant post by The Bladesman account here, you can see how, since August 2024, we’ve gone from a team that gives away few chances to a team that gives a little bit more.

Sheffield United, today, need more chances to score a goal, and our opponents need fewer. Part of that’s a natural regression after losing Anel Ahmedhodžić, Vini Souza, Kieffer Moore and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi. Another part is self-inflicted: buying poor players and players playing worse.

3. Defensive Control

Where do shots against come from? Let’s repeat the earlier comparison:

• 🥅 6-Yard Box Allowed: ⚔️ Blades 10% | 🔵 Cov 7% | 🦊 Leicester 12%

• 📦 Penalty Area Shots Allowed: ⚔️ Blades 58% | 🔵 Cov 58% | 🦊 Leicester 57%

• 🚀 Outside Box Shots Allowed: ⚔️ Blades 32% | 🔵 Cov 35% | 🦊 Leicester 32%

Whilst the percentage differences look small, the number of shots allowed in the 6-yard box were eyewatering: 1 in 10 of our shots allowed (56) are taken from close range, versus 1 in 14 for Coventry (38). Simply, we gave away far too many clear-cut opportunities as a proportion of the chances against.

Now, it’s fair to say that, as a metric, “shots in box divided by shots” misses out a huge chunk of context. Sometimes, a team defends so well that the opponents fling crosses or launch long throws or whatever. There is such a thing as a bad opportunity in the box. But I’m not having that with us. We’re not a defence-first side who concede relatively few chances, meaning the opponent has to craft a good opening to get one at all. We allowed far too many good opportunities.

Now, when opponents do get their shots off, one long-running suspicion is that we are dreadful at getting ourselves between the ball and the goal. Blocking is a skill of athleticism and positioning, and fair to say, it’s one of the poorest parts of our game.

We can see this in the percentage of shots that we block versus how many of our own shots are blocked by opponents.

Blocking shots is a final act, though. And really, it speaks to both the fact that we take more shots than our opponents, but also that, where we take shots against settled defences, opposing teams tend to find bigger gaps in our defence.

The gaps are an interesting one. Because, in part, they are self-induced through a press that, personally, I enjoy. I want us to press. I also want us to press without shooting ourselves in the foot.

1️⃣ After pressing a Blackburn clearance we win possession and Tanganga plays it straight back to them. They play the ball into the space vacated by Hamer.

2️⃣ Blackburn’s outball finds their right-sided player, by which point only one centre-back is positioned in our own half. Tanganga out of position.

3️⃣ Tanganga is permanently behind play, though someone should have covered. Nobody has stopped the throughball. McGuinness is flat-footed. Burrows isn’t tight. And Hamer never got close to his man. The end result is a goal.

The point here is that opponents find space too easily, especially with Hamer and Burrows on the pitch (pray for McCallum). This space does not exist in a vacuum; when an opposition player finds a gap, our players respond to try to plug it, but it leaves another gap elsewhere.

It’s a common theme this season. We have conceded from 9 counter attacks, which is nearly 1 in 7 of all goals conceded.

Well, fair to say Sheffield United operated one of the Championship’s most aggressive and effective pressing systems. Only Middlesbrough recorded more “pressing sequences” – which describes breaking opponents’ possession through a press. As a proportion of all our defensive actions, 11 per cent were presses, which ranks as the highest in the division.

That pressure translated into:

• 331 high turnovers, the second-highest total in the league, of which;

• 59 ended in shots and seven directly produced goals

To me, this is a good sign. And I’d wager most fans prefer a blood and thunder press to a more static block. The issue, as far as this season goes, is that we have a squad cleaved down the middle between those who are natural pressers (O’Hare, Brooks, Seriki) and those who only ever seem to chase lost causes (Hamer) or else cannot shift in the middle of the park when we lose possession (Riedewald, Rothwell, Davies and to a lesser extent, Peck).

Ahead of the summer, it’s going to be interesting to see whether the profile of players we sign fits with a pressing style/transitional style or more of a controlled possession team. In 25/26, we’ve been caught between the two, to put it negatively. Or for a positive spin: we’ve been adaptable.

What I don’t like about this team is its versatility. Opponents find plenty of joy from any number of attacking strategies: open play, counter-attacks and set pieces.

4. Possession & Territory

There are two key questions I want to look at here. First, who keeps us ticking over and is responsible for regular build-up play as we move from back to front? Second, are there any correlations between passing numbers and results?

Among players averaging at least 45 open-play passes per 90, we find three types of high-volume ‘build-up merchants’:

Centre-Backs: Obviously, centre-backs tend to collect the ball from the goalkeepers, and are therefore more likely to make more passes than most. The above shows there’s a preference towards Tyler Bindon operating as the build-up merchant when he plays. He has a +8/+10 swing to Tanganga and McGuinness who are evidently less trusted.

Centre-Mid: When Oliver Arblaster plays, his numbers sit alongside Sydie Peck in terms of volume. Both play a similar role when on the pitch (and arguably shouldn’t play together); they collect the ball and are trusted to distribute FORWARDS. You might wonder where someone like Riedewald fits in here. Just 1 in 5 of his open play passes comes in the final third, whereas it’s 1 in 3 for Peck/Arblaster. Jaïro shuttles; Sydie or Ollie are tasked with getting us into a dangerous position.

Ooh, a Left-Back: A full-back being used as a build-up merchant won’t be a common sight across the football league, but Harrison Burrows’ unique (some would argue limited) skill set allows us to attempt riskier, more direct passes. Burrows has an excellent left foot, and his distribution gives us a longer, similar-but-different-to-Norwood range when hitting channels or targets like Bamford. In that way, he offers something that our centre mids lack; that front-to-backness.

Of the players to make more than 45 open play passes per game, he makes the highest number in the final third.

By and large, we do well at keeping the ball in good areas. In 25/26, we averaged 52.4 per cent possession. This splits up into a broadly average pattern, again, more like the Champions than the relegation teams.

• 🛡️ Own Third: ⚔️ Blades 27% | 🔵 Cov 26% | 🦊 Leicester 30%

• ⚖️ Middle Third: ⚔️ Blades 41% | 🔵 Cov 42% | 🦊 Leicester 42%

• 🥅 Opposition Third: ⚔️ Blades 32% | 🔵 Cov 33% | 🦊 Leicester 28%

Spending more time in the opponent’s half is a perfectly sensible way to avoid conceding goals. That’s why we so often see the ‘horseshoe’ of passing from left to right, ambling in possession, as a defensive strategy. It’s an enduring motif from our last promotion season under Heckingbottom.

However, the “meta” in Championship football today, arriving a little later than it did in the Premier League, is transitions or counter-attacks. One in ten Championship goals (146) come on the break.

Here we see that metric (opposition half passes/touches in the box) on a match-by-match basis during Sheffield United’s losses this season.

Teams in the Championship are taking fewer passes to create more chances, and it’s no surprise that most of our losses come when teams move the ball quickly in the final third. Part of that is on the opponent. Another part is down to our inability to defend transitions due to being slow. Another part is down to bad individuals.

All but four of our wins came in games where, on average, we took seven or fewer passes to return a touch in the opposition's penalty area. There have been some great passages of play this season; snappy, one-touch stuff. Not all of it comes off, but it’s a symptom of this side playing at its best. The stodgier, possession-heavy stuff allows teams to settle into a block; that’s us at our worst.

We have a fairly strong win bias towards games where we have less than 50 per cent possession. In fact, we only won four games with 65 per cent possession or more.

That said, I don’t love possession as a statistic because, more than xG, it abandons context altogether. What really makes the difference in possession (unless you’re Arsenal or PSG) is not style or tactics, but game-state. If you’re winning, you’re more likely to sit off, and your opponent is more likely to risk more men in advanced positions. In evenly-matched games, the scoreline changes depending on who has more or less of the ball. This is way more interesting to me, and way more revealing of this Sheffield United team’s deficiencies.

5. Game-State Behaviour

When goals change game-state

Sheffield United’s goal-state profile is a weirdly revealing one: we’ve been a terrible “reset” team. Only six of our 66 goals were equalisers – 9.1 per cent, the lowest figure in the division alongside West Brom. When games got away, they often stayed away.

That was also the case last season, but mostly because we took the lead in a huge majority of games. Not quite the same this term. But yes, our goals were much more likely to either put us in front or stretch a lead:

• 31 to take the lead

• 29 to increase our lead, or reduce an opponent’s lead

Defensively, United also conceded plenty of goals that changed game-state, with our opponents scoring:

• 28 goals to take the lead

• 13 equalisers

• 25 goals that increased or reduced a lead

That fits the broader theme of a side with pretty good underlying attacking numbers but lacking… what? Momentum, scruff-of-the-neck-stuff, bottle, guile? Once matches tilted out of our favour, we struggled big time. This is undoubtedly a fragile team.

And so, when Chris Wilder talks about experience (which is not, in my view, the same thing as age), I do see logic there. It is abundantly clear that this version of Sheffield United struggles not simply to fight back in adversity – because that is always tough – but to hold leads.

Goal Times

The timing data tells a similar story. United scored 30 first-half goals and 36 second-half goals, so the attack actually improved after the break (it usually does for most teams in any league).

But the defensive drop-off was stark: we conceded 25 before half-time and 41 after it, including 19 goals between minutes 46–60, our worst single 15-minute spell of the season. That post-half-time vulnerability is one of the clearest explanations for why strong attacking process did not translate into a stronger finish. Intangibles again. What on earth was going on at the break?

United were, however, strong starters. We scored first in 25 of 46 matches, which was joint-third in the division behind Coventry and Hull, and level with Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Millwall and Southampton. Look at those names: scoring first is the mark of a top team – except for us. That makes the season feel less like one of poor starts and more like one of poor control and arguably, poor individuals.

6. Individual Impact

Let’s begin with the lack of impact and the 14 players (not including Jack Robinson and Rhys Norrington-Davies) who played fewer than 1,000 minutes each and contributed a total of three goals and three assists.

As Churchill once said, never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so many for so few. Or something like that. Between them, these players racked up almost 6,000 minutes, or the equivalent minutes of Callum O’Hare and Gus Hamer combined. We should never, never, never forget that this movie showcased some terrible cameos. Those small contributions add up to so much.

Anyhow, the SQUAD.

The players with 1000+ minutes

Pat on the head for Patrick Bamford: he was the only player in double figures for goals, while Hamer and O’Hare carried most of the creative load with 77 chances created and 19 assists between them.

Still, for a side that created plenty overall, the end product was spread ridiculously thinly.

There are many data outputs other than goals and assists, I grant you. But this is what football trades in, and over 25/26, we lacked goal contributors. If, say, we had a player like Kieffer Moore or Oli McBurnie, I have no doubt we’d have at least one more player on 10+ goals because there were other players who consistently got us into good positions.

One output which reflects our good positions is carrying, moving with the ball. It is perhaps more important than sheer dribbling ability; that knack for taking the ball from A to B and doing something with it at the end is what separates poor teams and good teams. This graph plots our players against progressive carries (moving it forwards) and carries that end with a chance.

Andre Brooks combines Sheffield United’s highest progressive carry distance with the most carries ending in chances, underlining his importance as the side’s primary ball-carrying threat. It’s a unique skillset, a physical thing. And we’d miss that a lot if he were to leave.

Here we see the plotting of overall chance creation with open play chance creation to give a picture that both includes and cuts out set-piece impact.

Gustavo Hamer leads Sheffield United for total chances created per 90, but some of that edge comes from set-piece delivery. In open play, Callum O’Hare is the side’s most productive creator per 90, with Brooks, Bamford, Seriki and Peck forming the next creative group.

It’s Patrick Bamford.

When comparing goals per game with shots per game, Bamford is comfortably our most dangerous scorer, combining the squad’s highest shot volume with the strongest goal output. Hamer, Cannon, Campbell and Brooks all shoot regularly but convert at a much lower rate, while several midfielders post middling shot numbers with crap end product.

Going the other way

A quick look at defensive output. I don’t always love defensive numbers, because a poor side is going to have to make more tackles/blocks etc. than a good one. But here’s a comparison between aerial duels won and ground duels won. It gives some indication about which of our players is better at what.

There are some standout numbers here. Femi Seriki and Andre Brooks’ defensive output is clearly of huge benefit down our right. So too for Sam McCallum in his minutes, though unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Burrows and Hamer.

As for the centre-backs: yeah, they win a lot of headers. It’s their job. Bamford wins a fair number too, and it’s amazing to think of what this season might’ve looked like without a target up top. Clearly, he’s been one of the bright stars of a dim campaign.

Who were the stars? Let’s try a top 5:

5️⃣ The 6th-highest-ranked “Attacking Full Back” in the league

4️⃣ The 6th-highest-ranked “Defensive Midfielder” in the league

3️⃣ The 5th-highest-ranked “Advanced Striker” in the league

2️⃣ No.1 “Defensive Midfielder” in the league (2nd due to fewer mins)

1️⃣ The highest-ranked “playmaking winger” in the league

The Championship’s top-assist maker improved his Goals+Assists from 16 in 24/25 to 17 in 25/26, over fewer games and in a poorer side. Losing Hamer in the summer would be massive. He’s been a joy, even when he does those virtue-signalling, lost-cause presses. Always bringing a smile to the face, a goal from nothing, a pass nobody else saw.

Interestingly, other players up there according to the app were Harrison Burrows and Mark McGuinness. Perhaps it’s a surprise to see no Andre Brooks, Femi Seriki or Callum O’Hare amongst the top-rated players in their positions. For the record they were ranked:

• Andre Brooks — #16 — Inside Forward

• Femi Seriki — #13 — Attacking Right Back

• Callum O’Hare — #15 — Advanced Playmaker

Had I filtered out players with fewer than 2,000 minutes, all those three would’ve ranked higher. But I didn’t. So there.

Conclusion

From the day after QPR (H) until 28 Feb 2026, no team in the Championship secured more points than Sheffield United (38). That was a 20-game period when we were the “best” side in the league, at least according to the points return. Thirty-eight: it’s a figure just shy of 60% of our points in 43% of our games.

Hell, I want to dwell on the good times and not the bad. Because, as I searched for reasons to dismiss this United team, the biggest flaw I found was not a lack of quality, but underperformance born of inconsistency. When this Blades side turned it on, our dominance was at times that of an automatic contender. Look at the xG share here:

Those moments of utter domination were too fleeting, but they did exist. I suppose the question they leave behind is whether they were an unrepeatable hot streak. I’m not sure. If you take away the first 15 games (when we were dreadful) and the last 10 (when play-off motivation died), you could argue we were pretty damn good.

Too many “ifs” for my liking. So what about, as a final temperature check, we look at Chris Wilder’s spell only? That feels fair.

• All 40 of Chris Wilder’s matches

• They are sorted by bands of Expected Goal Difference (xG-xGA)

• This gives a reflection of the number of games in which we created more chances than our opponents

• I’ve divided these up into bands of Positive (slight and strong), Even, Negative (slight and strong).

There were far more dominant performances than dreadful performances. There were 19 clear positive performances to 11 clear negatives. Which leads me to the conclusion that the league table does lie. We’re not the thirteenth-best team in this division; we’re much better than that.

If the Championship ran for 1,000 games, we’d be closer to the top than the bottom. But it doesn’t. And our final position reflects, on the one hand, a terrible summer window, and on the other, what happens to a team when there is no upwards or downwards pressure at the business end of the season.

With that, I’ll call time on this incredibly long piece. Looking ahead to next season, I am perhaps more positive than I should be. The level of positivity depends on the ins and outs, although six play-off places will only ever revise my expectations upward.

No matter what, I expect greater consistency to pay dividends in 26/27: same manager, smaller squad, and sensible if unspectacular signings. Imagine what might’ve been if we’d had just a bang-average summer, Michael Cooper had saved a few more shots, and Patrick Bamford had played a full season.

Thanks for reading. This took a lot of time. Give it a share on socials, forums, or by forwarding the email that lands in your inbox.

Share

In this episode of Memory Lane, we revisit the golden age of Sheffield United on VHS. It’s often weird, sometimes wonderful and unusually pricey. Join Andrew, Paul and David to chat through grainy tapes, nostalgic highlights, and worn-out rewind buttons.

This is the first of two parts. See you next week for part two.

Oh, and if you want to hear the Tufty Club series on UNITED…👇

Leave a comment