'Nervous': How Sheffield United beat Blackburn Rovers and others to defender's signature

One of those teams interested, Blackburn Rovers, host United at Ewood Park tomorrow - almost a month after the Lancastrians’ director of football expressed his frustration at missing out on a player who went on to join a side now operating under a transfer embargo after failing to keep up with its repayments on several historic deals.

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Heckingbottom has refused to be drawn into the debate surrounding United’s finances, insisting “those questions” need to be answered by “someone else”, he explained Ahmedhodzic chose Bramall Lane for footballing reasons after deciding to leave Malmo last summer.

“We always knew he wanted to come here,” said Heckingbottom, explaining that United’s use of overlapping centre-halves piqued the Bosnia and Herzegovina international’s interest. “We always knew that we were his number one and so, on that score, we could get him. But it was still a nervous time because there was a lot of interest. He certainly didn’t come here for the money.”

“Anel has been everything that we’ve hoped for,” Heckingbottom continued. “We knew exactly the type of player we wanted and you could see that in him, which enabled us to get ahead.”

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Ahmedhodzic’s success since arriving in South Yorkshire means his suspension, imposed under the totting-up procedure, is a huge disappointment for United as they prepare to face opponents led by Jon Dahl Tomasson - the 23-year-old’s former manager at the Eleda Stadion. Rovers also held talks with Malmo about Ahmedhodzic after appointing the Dane before admitting defeat when the Swede’s negotiations with United reached an advanced stage.

Second in the Championship table, Heckingbottom’s squad are two places and nine points above Rovers with 13 matches of their season remaining.

With Ahmedhodzic telling The Star earlier this week that he rejected the chance to compete in some of Europe’s top leagues in order to represent United, Heckingbottom said: “You could go to one of those but then you can’t go to the Premier League from there, which is something we’re obviously trying to do.”

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