101 Best Sheffield United Players of the last 25 years [60-21]

In part two of three, Ben Meakin ranks the middle section of his top 101 players.

Words: Ben Meakin (BladesPod)

Hello and welcome to part two of my attempt to rank the best 101 Sheffield United players of the last 25 years. If you missed it, you can check out part one – counting down from 101-61 – now, but for those who were keeping track, I’m delighted to drop the next section of the rankings, taking us down through the 50s, 40s and 30s to leave just the prestigious top 20 to come in the final part.

First, a bit of housekeeping: I started writing this in March, since which time United have played in a cup semi-final and won promotion back to the Premier League. In doing so, two players who had not been previously considered eligible – Tommy Doyle and James McAtee – have now earned themselves a spot on the list for their contributions in this promotion. 

I’m going to slot Doyle in at 94, in between Lee Morris and Ched Evans. McAtee deserves to go a little higher than his City team-mate, and I’m dropping him in at 80, just ahead of Jayden Bogle and Jamie Ward but a notch behind Simon Moore.

As a consequence, we have to say goodbye to two Blades from the bottom of the list, with Laurent D’Jaffo and Neill Collins dropping out. Sorry boys. Marcus Bent is your new 101st best Sheffield United player of the last 25 years.

Okay, let’s get into the next 40 players. As we get closer to the top of this list, I’m going to take a few liberties with the word count where I think it’s necessary to expand on a player’s career/inclusion on this list.

Finally – skip this part if you’ve read part one – here are the ground rules that I set myself for this ranking: 

• This is ranked not necessarily on footballing ability (although that helps) or what a player did internationally or at other clubs. How much of a contribution each player made to United over these 25 years is a factor. On the flip side, simply playing a lot of games for us isn’t enough – what a player actually did in those games is what I’m interested in. I’ve also taken into account the level at which a player played for us – someone who did well in the Premier League might be ranked higher than someone who did equally well in League One.

• A player has to have made at least 25 appearances for United (all competitions) since the start of the 1997-98 season to be eligible. This means players like Jan Aage Fjortoft (16 appearances in 1997-98), Brian Deane (24 appearances split across 1997-98 and 2005-06) and Paul McGrath (11 appearances) don’t qualify. Sorry boys.

• This is a ranking of the last 25 years, so I’m effectively ignoring anything that happened before the 1997-98 season. If a player was phenomenal in 1996 and the first part of 1997 then merely good in 1998 and 1999, their position on (or absence from) this list will reflect this.

I’ve included appearances and goals (clean sheets for keepers) – all data taken from Transfermarkt. A quick note on that: some of the appearance data might be a little wonky with the handful of players who were playing for us in the early 1990s, so apologies to avid readers of Sheffield United: The Complete History of which I am not an owner.

Let’s go – player number 60…

60) David Unsworth – 40 appearances, 4 goals

That’s right, I’m doing it: the player responsible for probably the single-most painful day in the last 25 years of United history cracks my top 60. Unsworth was a shrewd bit of business by Neil Warnock, with the powerful left-back signing on a free transfer in 2005 and scoring a penalty on his debut (hold that thought…). “Rhino” was a key player for United that season, and it was his goal that all-but clinched promotion: smashing in a 90th-minute winner at the Kop end against Hull.

Unsworth was the starting left-back in the Premier League but soon slipped out of the team and onto the transfer list – joining Wigan on a free transfer in January 2007. Of course, it was Unsworth that would eventually take – and score – the decisive penalty for the Latics at Bramall Lane on the final day of the season, consigning United to relegation. Earlier in that season he’d missed a penalty for United against Blackburn that – along with a thousand other small moments throughout this stupid relegation – would have rendered that final-day loss academic. 

Unsworth never kicked another ball for Wigan and is now the Oldham manager after several stints as Everton’s caretaker boss.

59) Jake Wright – 53 appearances, 0 goals

At this point I’m not sure whether Jake Wright is an unsung hero or an appropriately-sung hero – either way, he was a crucial part of Chris Wilder’s League One champion side. The former Oxford captain joined on a free and made his debut against his former side, which just so happened to be United’s first win of the season. It’s no coincidence that the Blades didn’t lose a single one of the 30 league games Wright played in that campaign. He also started in the 4-2 win at Hillsborough.

58) Lee Sandford – 163 appearances, 4 goals

Another dependable defender, Sandford signed in 1996 and was a regular in United’s first-team over the next five seasons. He played over 500 professional games in his career, the majority of which were with United and Stoke. In 1998 he scored the winner against Reading in the FA Cup 5th round to set up that dramatic quarter-final with Coventry City. Sandford had, in an odd twist, been on loan to the Royals earlier that season. He is now a professional stock trader and author of the book Goals to Gold: Trading the Football Pitch for the Financial Markets.

57) Paul Ifill – 45 appearances, 9 goals

I’m convinced that Paul Everton Ifill is broadly underrated by United fans, given how rarely his name pops up when reminiscing about good Blades sides of the recent past. Signed from Millwall for £800,000, Ifill was pivotal in firing us to promotion in his first season. He had an impressive debut against Leicester, finding the net and showcasing his skills, and ended up with nine goals that season. After United’s promotion charge had floundered in February and March, Ifill returned to the team and scored in both of the Blades’ next two wins – including the dramatic 3-2 over Hull that essentially clinched promotion.

Ifill was another player who – like David Unsworth – went from key player to dispensable in the eyes of Warnock, and he hit the transfer list before being shipped out to Crystal Palace in January. Amusingly (although probably not for Ifill), his next manager at Palace was none other than… Neil Warnock. He was promptly transfer-listed again.

56) John Lundstram – 120 appearances, 8 goals

This one might annoy some readers, but here’s why Lundstram deserves to be this high up. After playing barely 400 minutes as United were promoted from the second tier, suddenly Lundstram was starting away at Bournemouth in our first match back in the Premier League. And… he was excellent. He scored a winner against Palace in the next game. Set up Lys Mousset at Everton, and had a hand in John Fleck’s opener against Man Utd. Bagged two in the 3-0 dismantling of Burnley. And chipped in with a late winner against Bournemouth, a few weeks before lockdown.

It was the purplest of purple patches as “JL7” suddenly emerged as an athletic box-to-box midfielder with a Frank Lampard-esque knack of arriving in the box at the perfect time – and a global following thanks to the official Fantasy Premier League game listing him as a defender (so many points). Sadly, it all fell apart from there: rumblings of contract discontent and a poor start to the following season saw Lundstram’s form and enthusiasm decline to the stage where it resembled performance art. He got his big-money move to Rangers after this season, for whom he scored the winner against Leipzig in the Europa League semi-final.

The pervading memory of Lundstram is of that last season where he became synonymous with the joyless, pointless, crowdless, half-arsed football we sat through, locked in our living rooms. But without those first few months of 2019/20, United might not have gotten to that second season of Premier League football at all – and, given how messy the club’s financial situation is at the time of writing, we should at least be (slightly) thankful for “Lord Lundstram”.

55) Sander Berge – 109 appearances, 15 goals

The signing of Berge felt like a watershed moment for United at the time: swooping in to sign a sought-after prospect from Europe for big money (for us), at a time when we were potentially closing in on European qualification. As it happens, this was more the high point for Chris Wilder’s United, whose collapse coincided with a global pandemic and closed stadiums. 

I have some sympathy for Berge (even allowing for the fact that I’m sure he’s been financially well-remunerated by the Blades) who has never quite lived up to the heights that we hoped he’d display. That said, when Berge’s on it, there’s few like him: a player who can glide effortlessly past opponents and put it on a plate for others. Probably the best way to summarise Berge’s United career is that every time he does something good we’re left asking “why doesn’t he just do that every time?” We’ve had more goals from midfield this season but his six strikes last campaign felt like gold dust and were more than John Fleck, Oli Norwood and Conor Hourihane could muster between them.

54) Lys Mousset – 53 appearances, 9 goals

Hear me out on this one, considering Mousset scored three goals in his last two seasons with us and never completed a full 90 minutes in red and white – or any other colour for that matter. But as with Lundstram, without the French striker’s impact things might have been very different for United in that first season in the Premier League.

Fitness concerns were already rearing their head with Mousset – I watched him limp through a cameo appearance at Matlock Town in preseason – but he scored at Everton in his third game, and followed that with the winner against Arsenal and a cool equaliser at West Ham. In his next game he set up all three goals as we beat Burnley, ran Spurs ragged at their place, bullied Phil Jones into submission before curling in a beauty against Man Utd, and opened the scoring at Wolves. The Blades were sitting pretty in the Premier League table and it owed a lot to the explosive Mousset who briefly looked like he could be worth far in excess of the £10m or so we’d paid for him.

Injury, loss of form, and persistent lack of fitness meant it never happened, and apart from scoring twice at Barnsley his last real meaningful action in England was totalling his orange Lambo in a 40 zone (thankfully no one was hurt). He had a brief loan at Serie A side Salernitana before signing on a free at VfL Bochum in Germany, who suspended him four months later over a lack of professionalism. He never played a game for Bochum who sent him out on loan to Nimes of the French second tier.

Taking all that into account, the signing of Mousset was a risk worth taking and (I’d argue) he repaid his transfer fee in just those few months where teams simply couldn’t handle him.

53) Oli McBurnie – 136 appearances, 23 goals (to date)

A good chunk of McBurnie’s Blades career has been downright dreadful, but it has at least been bookended by two good seasons – both of which proved to be successful for the club as a whole. Six goals wasn’t a massive return on the £20m invested in him in his debut season, but it was enough to finish as our joint top-scorer. He was one of the very few Blades players to look even close to peak form during Project Restart as the 2019/20 season played out to its socially-distanced conclusion, adding goals against Spurs and Chelsea to the last-minute equaliser against Man Utd that was probably his highlight.

McBurnie then went an improbably long time without scoring – including a full Championship season – and couldn’t keep his nose clean. Finally he got himself back to fitness and form, with a goal at Luton sparking an impressive goalscoring run as United moved into the promotion spots. By all accounts McBurnie is an immensely popular team-mate who is adored by a good section of United’s fans, and may well get another contract with us this summer.

52) Gary Speed – 40 appearances, 6 goals

Speed’s stints as player and manager for the Blades were fairly brief, but he was a well-liked and wholehearted figure – just as he was throughout his career. He was 36 when he signed, having already made an astonishing 800 career appearances, and immediately became an on-field leader for the club. After Kevin Blackwell’s sacking, “Speedo” was appointed as manager, but left four months later when offered a job he couldn’t refuse – Wales.

His death at the age of 42 shook the world of football. It’s difficult to put into words how tragic his passing was, and how many people it affected – and how deeply. I invite you to read this BBC Sport article on his death. RIP Speedo.

51) Danny Webber – 125 appearances, 26 goals

I imagine that a lot of people’s first thought when they see Webber’s name will be that miss against Wigan (here it is if, like me, you’ve rarely / never watched it back – it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out). It’s a pretty unfair legacy for a hard-working and skillful forward who immediately moved into United fans’ good books by scoring inside two minutes of his debut in a 4-0 win at Elland Road. He scored a useful ten goals in the 2005/06 promotion season, including the one that virtually clinched it away at Cardiff. In fact, a lot of his best moments came away from home, including winners in a pair of rare road wins in the Premier League the following season.

50) Kyle Naughton – 50 appearances, 3 goals

Into the top 50 now with another entry into the string of superb right-backs that have played for United in the last 25 years. We only saw one season from Kyle Naughton before he moved to Tottenham alongside another player who is still to appear on this list – but it was a brilliant season, and he was one of the standout players as United finished third and reached the playoff final. The Sheffield lad finished the season filling in at left-back – where he was also excellent – and was included in the Championship Team of the Year. Perhaps Naughton didn’t go on to hit the heights that we might have thought after that debut season, but he’s still had an excellent career in the top two divisions.

49) Kevin McDonald – 91 appearances, 5 goals

In contrast to the litany of good-to-great right-backs that United have had during this era, midfield was a little thinner – at least until Chris Wilder took the helm. Kevin McDonald stands above a lot of our midfield options from this time – a brilliant passer, and just pure class on the ball. We picked him up on a free from Burnley and it took a little while before the club had the epiphany of “oh, this guy is one of our best players” and started to build everything around him. Infuriatingly, he missed the playoff final against Huddersfield after getting injured in the semifinal and was sold to Wolves a year later, winning the club’s Player of the Season award as they set a new points record in winning League One.

48) Matt Lowton – 89 appearances, 10 goals

It’s… another right-back! And another homegrown one who’s gone on to have a really good career in the top two leagues. Lowton’s first full season was a disastrous one as United – a total mess on and off the field – went down from the Championship. None of that was on Lowton, who scored four and set up another three in a doomed effort. He absolutely thrived against inferior opposition the next season, with nine goal involvements to show for his efforts in a free-scoring Danny Wilson team. He also set up Chris Porter’s winner in the playoff semifinals. Left that summer to join Villa and went on to make over 200 appearances for Burnley.

47) Leigh Bromby – 139 appearances, 7 goals

And another! Bromby was a free transfer signing from the blue half of the City, and went on to be a key player for United, making more appearances than he had for the other lot. He scored five goals in his debut season with the Blades, and got one in the opening day win over Leicester in the following campaign in which he’d go on to play every minute of the first 33 games before picking up an injury. Had a big ol’ long throw on him – too bad he was sold to Watford just before the Kevin Blackwell era. Now Head of Football Operations at Huddersfield.

46) Alan Quinn – 108 appearances, 11 goals

Quinn was a goalscoring midfielder whose final strike for the Blades was one that’s bumped him several places higher on this list. In March 2005 he smashed in what proved to be the winner against Sheffield Wednesday, just two years after scoring for the other lot in front of the Bramall Lane Kop. That made Quinn the first player in history to have scored for both sides in the Steel City derby. The Irishman was a big part of that promotion season and it was his pass that set up Christian Nade’s goal against Arsenal the following year.

45) John Brayford – 69 appearances, 4 goals

Brayford’s place on this list owes as much to vibes as it does his actual performances (although they were good too!). He was a light in dark times – and boy, were they dark when he signed on loan in January 2014, with United near the foot of League One. Brayford was one of the few players in that David Weir / Nigel Clough era who genuinely looked like he belonged in the league above, and also the first time I became aware of a player using social media as a full charm offensive. 

It’s commonplace now for players to pander to the fans of their club, but on-loan Brayford went all-out right from the moment he arrived. And I loved it. Possibly I needed it, given how bad things were at the club.

I have two outstanding memories of Brayford: the first is the one we all remember, the goal against Charlton in the FA Cup quarter-final and the mad celebrations that followed. The second came earlier in that run, in the dregs of a dreadful game at Fulham. Brayford bombed forward from right-back and won a 120th minute corner, going down with cramp in the process. The physio was all set to run on and Brayford angrily waved him off in front of us, struggled to his feet and hobbled into the box as the fans sang “he’s a Blade”. I was still thinking “this guy’s alright” as Harry Maguire nodded down the corner and Shaun Miller flicked it into the net.

The second chapter of Brayford’s Blades career is remembered less-fondly: we spent over £1m on him in 2015, which was ludicrous money for a League One team who already had several right-backs on the books (he also claimed to have taken a pay cut to join). As it happens, Brayford had to move to centre-back for the playoff against Swindon where he suffered a bad injury blocking a goalbound shot. He made just three more league appearances for United in the next two seasons, but he’ll forever be the first player that springs to my mind when I think about Blades cult heroes through the years.

44) Stephen Quinn – 238 appearances, 22 goals

Brother of Alan, Stephen Quinn made his league debut in the Premier League in 2006-07 and it quickly became apparent which of the siblings would have the bigger role at United in the coming years. He won the club’s Young Player of the Season award that year and went on to be an important player over the next five seasons. Squinny was a decent finisher and a fine creator, notching 37 assists over his Blades career including 12 in our first season back in League One. He went on to be a popular player for Hull (where he scored against United in the 5-3 FA Cup semi), Reading, Burton and Mansfield.

43) Derek Geary – 115 appearances, 1 goal

“Del” Geary crossed over from the other side of the city at the same time as Alan Quinn and Leigh Bromby, and arguably – well, I’m arguing it here – had the biggest impact of the three. He may only have scored one goal – a memorable late winner at Millwall in 2004 – but he was excellent at left-back in the Premier League and earned a contract extension after that season. His contribution to the club has extended beyond his playing days: Geary was made the lead coach of the Under 18s in 2016 and progressed to Academy Manager in 2022 when Paul Heckingbottom and Jack Lester moved into first-team duties.

42) Paul Peschisolido – 102 appearance, 24 goals

Looking back, I was stunned to be reminded that Peschisolido only scored three league goals in the “Triple Assault” season of 2002-03, with two of them coming in a 3-3 draw with Wolves in the 44th game of the season. Yet Pesch was a real super-sub through his time at United, with over half his appearances coming from the bench for good reason: his arrival often changed games.

Small in stature but a real pest for defenders, Pesch never gave less than maximum effort and he scored one of the more memorable goals of this century in the playoff semi-final against Nottingham Forest. Latching onto Paddy Kenny’s long kick, Peschisolido slalomed this way and that before slamming the ball past Darren Ward to prompt the now-iconic “oh my god” goal celebration.

41) Rob Page – 125 appearances, 1 goal

That Rob Page doesn’t even crack my top 40 is largely down to how many good centre-backs we’ve had in the last 25 years. Welsh international Page was as solid and dependable as they come, and signed for £350,000 after a brief loan spell from Watford. He was the captain during United’s thrilling 2002-03 season, including playing every minute of the FA Cup run. Page’s career encompassed 550 competitive games and he is now the manager of the Welsh national team, whom he led to the World Cup for the first time in 64 years in 2022.

40) Leon Clarke – 96 appearances, 32 goals

I can’t claim to have an in-depth knowledge of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club as I generally have them on ignore unless things are going terribly for them, but it’s remarkable how many players have switched from blue to red and had successful careers in the last 25 years; you could probably count the ones who’ve done it the other way on one finger. Leon is the highest ex-Owl on this list for one game in particular, but let’s not overlook the fact that for one ridiculous season, Clarke was pretty much the best striker in the Championship.

He had a slow start to our first season back in the second tier, but caught fire in the autumn and winter and even ended up captaining the side around Christmas. His first goal – goals – of the campaign came, of course, at Hillsborough, where he scored twice and also set up Mark Duffy’s bounce-killing moment with a deft pass. It was an immense, legendary performance from Clarke in the most significant derby of this period.

He scored two more in his next game, a win over a Wolves side who would go on to storm to the title, took a few games off but then went 4, 1, 3, 1 over his next three and a half games (!). Against Hull he became the first United player since Keith Edwards in 1983 to score four goals in one game (and he did it all in a single half; United were 1-0 down at the break). He went on to score 19 league goals that season – no penalties – and land a spot in the PFA Team of the Season.

Only three Blades goals arrived the next season as David McGoldrick displaced him, but Clarke had one more ace to play in red and white when he set up a shock winner for lowly Wigan at Elland Road to put United back in the box seat for promotion. The fact that the players were so keen to include Leon in the promotion celebrations even while he was still out on loan spoke volumes.

39) Jamie Murphy – 122 appearances, 21 goals

A player we chased for a little while, Murphy eventually signed for around £250,000 in January 2013 – sold by then-Motherwell manager Stuart McCall, as it happens. He arrived with a reputation as a goalscoring winger and initially flattered to deceive – even in League One – but burst into life the following season once Nigel Clough took over. He scored seven goals that season, with the highlight being a goal and assist at Wembley against Hull as he set up Stefan Scougall for United’s second.

Murphy by this point was beginning to look far, far above the third tier opponents he was coming up against, and he scored 11 goals in 43 league games the following season. His performances against higher-level opposition really elevate him above most of his peers at this point: he made a fool of Eric Dier against Spurs in the League Cup, and also terrorised Forest in that FA Cup run. He was never the fastest, or even the most skillful of wingers, but had a great knack of seeming to just delay with the ball long enough to commit defenders and allow him to get by.

In the end, it’s a shame we were never able to surround Murphy with better players (or a better manager) – it’s fun to imagine how he might have got on had he not been sold the year before Chris Wilder arrived. As it is, Murphy went on to have an excellent back half of his career with Brighton (helping them to win promotion to the Premier League) and then Rangers.

38) Carl Asaba – 77 appearances, 24 goals

“When the ball hits the goal / it’s not Shearer or Cole / it’s Asaba” – you know you’re onto a good thing when your new striker soon has the fans singing a song of that calibre. “Sarbs” signed for the still-hilarious sum of £92,500 (seriously, did Gillingham negotiate over the £500?) and a few weeks later had written his way into folklore by scoring what proved to be the winner over Wednesday, nodding in a cross at the Leppings Lane end past Kevin Pressman. It remains one of the slowest, but most enjoyable, headers in Blades history.

Asaba was an important player during the Triple Assault season of 2002-03, and netted a hat-trick at Brighton as United came back from 2-0 down with 20 minutes to go to win 4-2. Injury interrupted the middle third of that season but he came back to score crucial goals against Nottingham Forest (who we’d later go on to eliminate from the playoffs) and Leicester. He is now the resident hype man of United’s media output.

37) Marcelo – 73 appearances, 29 goals

Marcelo dos Santos Cipriano – to this day I can still remember his full name, along with the newspaper report that absent-mindedly dubbed him “John Marcelo” – was one of only five Blades strikers to record a 20+ goal season during this quarter-century (James Beattie and Ched Evans are two of the others; the remaining two are still to appear on this list). 

Or was he? I had a hell of a time trying to marry up my memory of Marcelo holding up his hands to indicate “twenty” after his goal in the final home game of the 1998-99 season, and every online resource that shows a mere 19 goals in all competitions that campaign. Finally, it twigged: Marcelo scored at Highbury against Arsenal in the game that was later struck from the record books and replayed after Marc Overmars’ faux pas. 

Well John, that goal was certainly not struck from the record books of my heart. Marcelo filled the gap left by the departures of Brian Deane and Jan Age Fjortoft the previous season. His most memorable goal arrived in that 1997-98 campaign, as he scored a superb equaliser at Premier League Coventry in the FA Cup quarter-final. After smashing the ball past Steve Ogrizovic, Marcelo ran towards the United fans, whipping off his shirt to reveal he’d been wearing another one underneath presumably for this exact purpose.

36) Stuart McCall – 89 appearances, 2 goals

McCall finished his long playing career at the Blades and is now assistant coach to Paul Heckingbottom after winding his way through some… mixed managerial appointments. He was already 38 when Neil Warnock signed this particular wise old head for United, but he immediately looked like the sort of on-field general that managers dream about getting to write onto their teamsheet.

For two seasons McCall’s age was but a number as he played in 71 possible league games and was integral to the 2002-03 team’s charge to a pair of cup semi-finals and a playoff final. Fatefully, McCall was replaced by Mark Rankine for the game with Wolves – a mystery at the time, and even more of one a few hours later when Wolves ran out 3-0 winners. 

McCall retired just before his 41st birthday after a frankly absurd 763 appearances in British league football. One of his two United goals came against his beloved Bradford but I’d rate his crucial assist against Wednesday more highly: a running challenge-turned-flicked-cross that Steve Kabba turned in to cancel out the Owls’ opener.

35) Steve Kabba – 85 appearances, 22 goals

How’s that for a segue. Kabba received a standing ovation from impressed Blades fans after playing against us at the Lane while on loan at Grimsby; a few months later we’d signed him permanently from Crystal Palace (maybe us fans do know our stuff after all). It looked like a masterstroke as he scored on his debut in a 5-0 away win at Bradford. He finished that season with just seven in the league, though his volleyed equaliser against Forest in the playoffs was a standout.

Injury ruined the following season but he was vital in United’s hot start in 2005-06 that ultimately ended in promotion. Kabba netted on the opening day and had six goals after six appearances. A superb equaliser in a fiery trip to Elland Road a few weeks later was the pinnacle: contract wranglings entered the public eye and his performances never reached that level again.

Three big goals put him high on this list. The aforementioned strike against Forest was a superb bit of individualism; finally putting one past the seemingly-unbeatable Kevin Pressman in the Wednesday goal was invention and bravery rolled into one; and his winning volley against then-Premier League Leeds in the FA Cup quarter-final was celebrated just as wildly.

34) Paul Devlin – 155 appearances, 27 goals

It feels like aeons since United have had wingers, such is the prevalence of 3-5-2 over the last seven years – but Paul Devlin was a very, very good one. A goal threat with quick feet and a devastating cross, he was a do-it-all attacker who had defenders panicking when he got on a roll.

Fittingly, Devlin scored the first goal of the Neil Warnock era – courtesy of a mesmerising run against Portsmouth – and he fired in a clutch of other goals over the next month to ease any relegation fears. Smashing in a volley against Fulham in front of the Kop was a highlight, although his long-range screamer in off the post of Alan Kelly – now of Blackburn – the following season might have been the best of the lot.

Above all, Devlin was a fiery, feisty character who got fans excited as much through his aggressiveness as the slaloming dribbles. He sparked a comeback against Sunderland in the 1999 playoff first leg – a game where we were clearly technically inferior to the opposition – simply by putting in a few hefty tackles after half-time and getting the crowd going. He’d be even higher on this last had Sunderland keeper Lionel Perez not pulled off a stupidly-good save off a Devlin rocket at the Stadium Light to send the Black Cats to Wembley

33) Wayne Quinn – 157 appearances, 6 goals

United’s youth system has produced some excellent players in these 25 years; Wayne Quinn belongs in that category even if he doesn’t have the international pedigree of the likes of Harry Maguire and Kyle Walker. Left-back Quinn burst onto the scene in the first game of 1997-98 as the other half of United’s new attacking full-back tandem with Vas Borbokis, and was soon attracting attention from bigger clubs as well as representing England B in 1998.

He was a big part of one of the most exciting Blades teams we’d seen – or would see – for years, adding width to an attack that was spearheaded by Brian Deane, Jan Age Fjortoft and later Dean Saunders. Quinn was also defensively sound – crucial in a team that played on the front foot so much – and kept his cool to convert the winning penalty in the FA Cup shootout win over Coventry.

He joined Premier League Newcastle in 2001, although it never really worked out there and he later returned to the Blades on loan. He retired from professional football due to injury while still in his 20s, but for a couple of years he was in the mix as a possible next-man-up for England given their dearth of left-backs during this era.

32) Rob Kozluk – 240 appearances, 3 goals

From one full-back to another: Wayne Quinn was undoubtedly more talented than Rob Kozluk, but the longevity of “Kozzy” gives him the edge here. It’s fair to say it took him a little while to win over the fans: being part of a deal with Derby that saw fan favourite Vas Borbokis go in the other direction will do that to a player. And Kozluk’s cross into the Kop during the nadir of the home defeat to Port Vale under Adrian Heath has entered urban legend (I swear I actually was one of the 8,965 fans who witnessed this cross first-hand).

Kozluk ended up out on loan time and again, and kept returning to win his place back. He never, ever slacked off and that did actually matter during the era that he was here: he played under Bruce (who was bad), Heath (who was worse), and Warnock (who was mixed). Improbably after that 1999 Kop-cross, he became an important player in the 2002-03 team and ended up playing in the Premier League for us.

By the time of his release in 2007 he was our longest-serving player after almost a full decade in red and white. Warnock would regularly speak in glowing terms about Kozluk’s character and importance in the dressing room, and one of my biggest regrets as a fan is that I was never lucky enough to be in attendance for one of the three goals that he scored for us across those nine seasons.

31) James Beattie – 84 appearances, 34 goals

When professional opposition-view-gatherer Roy picked James Beattie as his top striker in our recent draft of the best players in the last 25 years, I initially raised an eyebrow. But t’old Roy made a compelling case for BT, namely that it was a rare treat to see United sign a player who – still in their prime – was pretty clearly playing at a level below where he should be.

Beattie was one of the few good notes from the Bryan Robson season: United floundered on their return to the Championship under his “leadership”, but it would’ve been a hell of a lot worse without our new striker. Beattie scored 22 goals in 39 games in his debut season, demonstrating all of his striking prowess with a diverse range of goals. He was our Player of the Year, and didn’t slow down from there, with another 12 by the following January.

Then came the infamous “Beattie flu”, as United, seeking to cut costs, cashed in their asset by returning him to the Premier League where he clearly belonged – nixing any outside chance of it being as a Sheffield United player in the process. He would later return to United in League One but was a shadow of the dominant striker we’d seen four years previously: 18 further goalless appearances messed up his impressive goals-per-game ratio somewhat, and his most significant contribution was missing what would’ve been a season-saving strike at MK Dons.

30) Kieron Freeman – 141 appearances, 17 goals

A confession: I didn’t like Kieron Freeman, at all. To me he seemed like a footballer who even if he could be bothered to try – which he rarely looked motivated to – there wouldn’t be a whole lot there to show off. His first 55 league and playoff appearances for United brought two goals and plenty of defensive struggles, even in lowly League One. He was on the verge of being bombed out of the club, but returned from loan at League Two Portsmouth in the summer of 2016 to find a new manager waiting for him – albeit one that plonked him immediately on the transfer list.

Possibly an underrated achievement of Chris Wilder’s is the transformation he affected in Kieron Freeman’s game over the next twelve months. “Overlapping centre-backs” were the talk of the top three tiers over the following few seasons but it wouldn’t have worked without good attacking contributions from the “overlapped” wingbacks. Freeman gave us exactly that, and was the default RWB for Wilder that entire season once we switched to a back three, scoring a remarkable 10 goals from a notionally-defensive position.

We’re lucky enough to have George Baldock these days but for the first half of the 2018/19 promotion season, it was a genuine debate as to who was the better choice. Freeman played the majority of that first half and had all the end product that Baldock lacked, and looked for all the world like he was a very good Championship player. And yet his next move – in 2021 – was all the way down to League One, with Swindon, before he jumped back to the second tier with Swansea barely four weeks later. Just a single appearance followed and he was soon back into League One with Portsmouth. 

Remarkably, Freeman is still only 31, making him one of the youngest ex-players on this list. It seems like his best football is long behind him – and coincided almost exclusively with Chris Wilder’s management – but what a couple of years they were.

29) Vasilios Borbokis – 58 appearances, 5 goals

Of course, we’d know all about Vas Borbokis if we sign his 2023 equivalent / Football Manager regen these days – but in 1997, the vast majority of fans were completely in the dark as to who this new million-pound (500,000 Greek drachmae) right-back was. Forty-five minutes into the first game of the season, though, we had a fair idea.

Sunderland were the visitors for a sun-drenched game that was billed as a celebration for the return of Brian Deane, but it was the unknown Borbokis who stole the headlines with a superb left-footed strike as part of one of the best debuts in these 25 years. And it wasn’t a one-off: United had signed a gem of an attacking right-back. Vas was a great dribbler, a better crosser, and oh, those freekicks. The standout was his fizzing 25-yarder against Sunderland once again in the playoffs, sailing one into the top corner to give United the lead.

Two regrets with Borbokis: this excellent United side was broken up around him with the same-day sale of Deane and Fjortoft, and then he himself departed barely a year later. But that one full season was the reason that plenty of Blades fans still get misty-eyed at the thought of him bombing down the right, or standing over a freekick.

28) Shaun Murphy – 176 appearances, 11 goals

United’s Player of the Season in 2000-01, Murphy was a colossal Australian centre-back and a rock for the Blades across four seasons. He was solid from the moment he joined from West Brom, and although he had a brief spell on loan at Crystal Palace after briefly falling out of favour, he returned to put in a superb season in defence in the “Triple Assault” campaign. 

At the end of that season, family came first for the popular Murphy, whose contract was mutually terminated so that he could return to Australia to be with his wife who was seriously ill at the time.

On the pitch, Murphy was as close to unbeatable in the air as any centre-back we’ve had during this era. He put this to good use, being a constant threat from set-pieces and scoring five goals in 2000-01 and another four in 2002-03, including a big goal against Premier League Sunderland en route to the League Cup semi-final. 

Australia were late to recognise what they had with Murphy, who didn’t make his international debut until he was 29 but then played 18 times over the next year and a half. He even had the distinction of scoring the winning goal against Brazil in the 2001 Confederations Cup third-place playoff.

27) Curtis Woodhouse – 110 appearances, 6 goals

Woodhouse made his Blades debut at the age of 17, and became the club’s youngest-ever captain at 19. That leadership role was borne out of his extreme combativeness on the pitch (although he generally saved the punching for his post-football career as a boxer), and he was an important player as the club went through some lean years financially. The value of unearthing a leader for relative pennies – United picked him up from York’s youth system for a mere £15,000 – was huge and Woodhouse clearly relished the responsibility.

His debut came in 1997-98 and by the following season he was a first-team regular in midfield and playing for England Under 21s. He made a switch to Birmingham for £1m in 2001 (a move that saw the next player on this list coming in the other direction), eventually winning promotion to the Premier League where he played a handful of times. 

Woodhouse’s post-playing career has been… eventful. He has a history that includes theft and affray, and claimed to have been involved in around 100 street fights. He managed Sheffield FC and a string of other local lower league sides, and of course, switched to boxing – later being awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List for his services to sport. Woodhouse also earned the nickname “Troll Hunter” after turning up on the doorstep of an online Twitter troll, wielding the hashtag #itsshowtime and a promise to give @jimmyob88 “a right pasting”.

26) Peter Ndlovu – 151 appearances, 29 goals

The first African player to play and score in the Premier League, Zimbabwean international Peter Ndlovu enjoyed a fine career in England. He’d already starred in the top flight for Coventry before moving to Birmingham and then switching to United in 2001 as part of the deal that sent Curtis Woodhouse to St. Andrew’s.

“Nuddy” quickly became just as popular at the Lane as a skilful winger who excited fans every time he got on the ball out wide. He was also a threat inside the box, memorably slamming in an injury-time winner against Leeds in 2002 in the League Cup and kickstarting what would be an incredible season of cup drama and late comebacks. 

We all know that campaign didn’t have the happy ending it deserved, but Ndlovu was a force of nature when the next one started, at one point rattling in a Leon Clarke-esque seven goals in four games. That included a second-half hat-trick against Cardiff as United scored five times in consecutive home games.

He enjoyed a 16-year international career that spanned a century of caps, and was later appointed as assistant manager of his country. As far as Blades wingers of this era go, Ndlovu was right at the top – and I can’t end this entry without a mention of his iconic “Nuddy gloves”.

25) David Holdsworth – 97 appearances, 7 goals

Holdsworth’s career with the Blades overlaps the start of this quarter-century, but he still contributed significantly during this era. “Reg” was a superb defender and captain who read the game well but also had the pace to get others out of trouble. Steve Bruce obviously thought he could fill in capably enough for Holdsworth when he – as player-manager – allowed the skipper to leave for Birmingham in 1999.

One moment stands out for Holdsworth, although it came at the other end of the pitch to where he did most of his best work. With time expiring against Coventry City in the FA Cup replay at the Lane, Holdsworth dutifully trotted up for a corner in front of the Kop. The ball was swung in, headed back across, and the captain launched into an acrobatic volley that flew past Steve Ogrizovic and into the net. United went onto win the game on penalties and my kneecaps were black and blue from the wooden South Stand seats.

By a strange quirk, Holdsworth twice scored own goals in separate games against Swindon, before making amends somewhat with a last-minute equaliser against the same opponent in the next meeting. His twin brother, Dean, was also a top-level footballer and the pair would become the first twins to manage against each other in the top five tiers of English football when Dean’s Newport beat David’s Mansfield 1-0 in 2010.

24) Kyle Walker – 35 appearances, 0 goals

You could certainly make the argument that Kyle Walker is the greatest player to have ever played for Sheffield United. Walker has played for England over 70 times at multiple international tournaments and was included in UEFA’s Team of the Tournament at Euro 2020. At the time of writing, he has won five Premier Leagues, a pair of FA Cups, and the most recent Champions League. Oh, and been named in the PFA Team of the Year three times.

We only got to see a glimpse of the greatness that was to come for Walker later in his career. However, anyone who saw those first few games – Walker made his league debut right at the end of the 2008-09 season – knew pretty quickly that he was a special talent. We’d spent the season enjoying the flourishing of another youth prospect – Kyle Naughton – but when 18-year-old Walker appeared against Swansea it was obvious that we’d found one even better.

Obviously, his game has been honed from his top-flight experience – especially at Man City – but even as a teenager he possessed generational athleticism as well as a footballing ability that was streets ahead of the poor opponents who went up against him. Barely three months after his debut Walker was sold to Spurs along with Naughton, although Kyle the Younger returned on loan for the following season. 

23) Alan Kelly – 214 appearances, clean sheet data unavailable

Kelly v Tracey is always a big debate among Blades fans from this era, and I’m taking the cop-out answer here and putting Tracey just a shade higher than his fellow keeper on the basis that most of Kelly’s time with the Blades came before 1997-98 (for the record, I’m Team Kelly when it comes to the straight question of who was the better goalkeeper).

Kelly started his career at Preston where his father, Alan Kelly Sr, had also played, and signed for the Blades in 1992. He was an unreal shot-stopper who excelled in games where United needed him to bail us out – the 1993 Cup Semi-Final against Wednesday being a case in point, where things could have got ugly without the Irishman’s intervention.

His best moment during this era arrived on St Patrick’s Day 1998 in the FA Cup replay with Coventry. Kelly would have been disappointed to see Paul Telfer’s long-range freekick skip past him and into the net (although watching it back, the ball bounces to a ridiculous degree) but would end the night as the hero, saving three penalties in the shootout. 

He was a little unlucky to not get more caps for Ireland, with a career that overlapped two other great Irish keepers in Packie Bonner and Shay Given. Kelly is now the goalkeeper coach at Everton. He was the first non-UK player to win United’s Player of the Year award.

22) Simon Tracey – 275 appearances, clean sheet data unavailable

Tracey’s longevity is something rarely seen in the game today: he signed from Wimbledon in 1988 and was still part of United’s first-team squad in 2002-03. He was the preferred keeper as United gained promotion from the third tier to the top flight, although injuries and the arrival of Alan Kelly put his place up for grabs.

The situation that unfolded where we had two excellent keepers at the same time is a little bizarre, in hindsight. The fact that neither Tracey or Kelly ever really made noises about leaving in order to get guaranteed football elsewhere is a credit to both of them. As fans, we were extremely fortunate to have two high-quality keepers spanning almost 25 years, and it was only Paddy Kenny’s arrival in 2002 – and another injury – that spurred Tracey into retiring after over 300 professional games.

Neil Warnock isn’t often short of a disingenuous soundbite but he summed up Tracey’s career perfectly in the programme for the keeper’s testimonial in 2003: “when you look at what Simon cost and the contribution he has made here, it must go down as one of the best bargains the club has ever had… His loyalty to United is an unusual quality in the game today”.

21) Mark Duffy – 121 appearances, 15 goals

Closing out this section of the 101, and just missing out on a spot in the sacred top 20, it’s one of the players who I feel genuinely fortunate to have seen play for us during this period. Duffy was the player that helped me understand what it meant to “play between the lines”: an attacking midfielder who was the perfect complement to Paul Coutts’ playmaking and John Fleck’s box-to-box style. 

One of Chris Wilder’s best value signings, Duffy was bagged on a free transfer in 2016 just months after being named in the League One Team of the Year for a promotion-winning loan with Burton Albion. Within a few games he’d caught my attention: a player with superb awareness on the ball, who was constantly demanding possession and looking to make things happen around the box. That first season brought six goals and nine assists as part of the promotion to League One, and he scored six more times during our Premier League promotion in 2018-19.

Duffy cemented his place in legend by scoring what will surely go down in history as one of the most famous Sheffield United goals – and certainly one of the most famous Steel City Derby goals. He was sent on as a substitute for centre-back Jake Wright in the 63rd minute of the 2017 derby at Hillsborough, which looked disastrous as Lucas Joao made the game 2-2 less than two minutes later.

Within two more minutes, though, as Hillsborough bounced in glee, Duffy latched onto a lofted ball from Leon Clarke in the box, turned the Wednesday centre-back into knots and slammed his shot into the back of the net. It was, and remains, an utterly stunning football moment, and arguably set the two clubs off in different directions: United won promotion the following year and have just returned to the Premier League while Wednesday slid out of the Championship altogether.

It ended frustratingly for Duffy, who butted heads with Wilder over a new contract that summer and instead was frozen out with a failed loan spell at Stoke and then half a season at ADO Den Haag before he was released at the end of his deal. As a result we never really got to say goodbye to a player who had given us some great – and one unbelievable – memories. His name, though, is still sung fondly at the Lane for his “late September” heroics.

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Ben Meakin is the creator and co-host of BladesPod, a Sheffield United podcast. You can follow him on Twitter and find BladesPod wherever you get your podcasts.