Wilder to be assured no fire sale after relegation
The Sheffield United board will assure Chris Wilder it will not undertake a fire sale of players at the end of the season, as tensions between the unhappy manager and Saudi owner Prince Abdullah continue over the direction of the club.
The club have indicated that they will allow Wilder to make decisions about the squad in the summer as they prepare for 2021-22 in the Championship, although big offers for their most saleable players – such as midfielder Sander Berge – will have to be considered. There has been little communication between the Saudi owner and Wilder since the January transfer window, when no new players were brought into the struggling side.
Wilder remains the choice of the board to lead the club in the aftermath of what seems to be inevitable relegation, although relations are fraught. They play Southampton today and in yesterday’s press conference, Wilder would not return to the grievances he aired before the win over Aston Villa on Wednesday. Then, he identified the club’s reluctance to plan for next season.
The Daily Telegraph understands the usual recruitment meetings will take place in the next few months and that pre-season plans, approved by Wilder, are already in hand.
Wilder has three years to run on his deal, signed in happier times, and no director of football appointment is planned. There is an acknowledgement that the club’s recruitment in the summer should have encompassed a more mature profile of player to help them consolidate their Premier League status in the short term. Instead, with an eye on the future, there was an investment in predominantly young players including Rhian Brewster, Aaron Ramsdale, Max Lowe and Jayden Bogle, as well as the loan-in of Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu.
The refusal to address the team’s dire situation in January, with injuries to Berge and Jack O’connell among others, led to Wilder’s unhappiness that the board did not have faith in his and his squad’s ability to survive.
In the past, the club have been sure footed in the transfer market, with O’connell, John Egan and Ollie Norwood picked up cheaply, while David Mcgoldrick and John Fleck were free-agent acquisitions.
Despite that, the club will also point to a net spend of £114million since the summer of 2016, according to the CIES Football Observatory. It places them 21st highest in Europe and ahead of Liverpool and Leicester City, among others, in that period.
Last summer, Wilder wanted Callum Wilson or Ollie Watkins. Both strikers ended up at rival Premier League clubs with contracts worth considerably more than the £65,000-per-week wage ceiling at Sheffield United. The Blades have also not been in the market for indemand loanees such as Ruben Loftus-cheek and Ademola Lookman, both of whom ended up at Fulham. Their wages were simply too high.
Part of the fallout between Wilder and Prince Abdullah has also come
down to the delay in planned improvements to the Shirecliffe training ground announced in July.
There was to be a purpose-built two-storey building for the first team. The academy was due to locate to a new site, which would help the effort to get it category one status under the Elite Player Performance Plan. All those plans have been placed on hold because of the second Covid-19 lockdown.
Chief executive Stephen Bettis and head of football administration Carl Shieber assist the manager. Prince Abdullah and his son-in-law, Prince Musaad, are also involved across the United World Group, which also owns Beerschot in the Belgian top flight, Kerala United in the second tier Indian I-league, and Al-hilal United, a UAE League second-tier club in Dubai.
In December, Prince Abdullah announced that Wilder would stay as manager regardless of relegation.