With the curtain coming down on Sheffield United’s extremely successful 2018/19 Championship campaign as we battled to second spot and automatic promotion into the Premier League for next season, it’s going to be a big and important summer for manager Chris Wilder.
There will be a natural adjustment period as we make the step up to the top flight and part of the job over the next few months is in identifying those players that can come in and increase our chances of consolidating our top flight future and avoiding a first time relegation back to the second tier.
That naturally means departures as he looks to keep the core of the group and our spirit intact.
Yesterday evening the club confirmed the first step in that process as we announced our release list on the Official Site.
Paul Coutts, Martin Cranie, Conor Washington, Daniel Lafferty and Caolan Lavery will be released when their contracts naturally expire over the summer, but we have also placed Leon Clarke, Jake Wright, Ched Evans, Samir Carruthers, Nathan Thomas, Ben Heneghan and Ricky Holmes on the transfer list as we look to raise some cash to reinvest.
Loanees, Dean Henderson, Kieran Dowell, Scott Hogan, Gary Madine and Marvin Johnson have now all returned to their parent clubs following the expiry of their spells with us and we’ll have to wait and see if any return on permanent deals given the rumour mill speculation.