Looking after the future of the club.
That was my main takeaway from the latest transfer ‘roundup’ when it came to Sheffield United this summer.
Writing in an article for The Star, journalist James Shield gave a bit of an update when it comes to how Sheffield United have handles their business so far this window, and in that roundup you can see a pattern starting to emerge.
It’s pretty clear what Sheffield United are doing when it comes to their transfer strategy, both with the signing of Aaron Ramsdale, and the pursuit of the likes of Ollie Watkins, Rhian Brewster and John Swift.
For the most part, we’re buying young, and we’re buying British.
How much will the club spend this summer?
More than £50m
Less than £50m
It’s nice to see that we are interested in developing homegrown talent, and that we haven’t necessarily changed course drastically now that we’re in the division, if you take a look at how our squad is made up, the vast majority of them are British and Irish.
But more than that, I think we’re doing this more for the long-term future of the club both on the pitch and in the bank.
It’s well known that British players tend to cost a lot more than they are probably worth, and if we’re a club that is developing the lesser-known players and turning them into quality ones (take Dean Henderson who after two years with us saw his value go up to as much as £55m, just a shame we didn’t buy him when he was cheap) then we are left with one of two options.
We can either play them and keep a good side together for a number of years, or we can sell them for a handy fee and try again with the proceeds whilst at the same time keeping our finances in check so if things do go wrong (hopefully not, but ‘fail to prepare’ and all that’).
Is this the best strategy to go for in the long-run? We’ll just have to wait and see.