Tony Currie’s Sheffield United Premier League prediction as key stars identified

Tony Currie has backed Sheffield United to stay in the Premier League next season after identifying the players he believes will be key in their bid to seal survival.

United sealed their return to the top flight after two seasons away after finishing second in the Championship behind leaders Burnley, with many pundits and outlets already tipping them for an instant return to the second-tier.

Boss Paul Heckingbottom and his recruitment staff face another busy summer as they look to assemble a squad they feel is capable of competing at Premier League level, on a modest budget of around £20m.

But the task is made easier by the presence of a number of players already at United who have already suggested they can hold their own at Premier League level, or that they will be able to. They include Sander Berge, along with two players eagerly awaiting their first taste of the top flight in Segenal star Iliman Ndiaye and Bosnia and Herzegovina international Anel Ahmedhodžić.

Supplementing that star trio are a host of veterans from United’s last Premier League adventure, when they threatened to qualify for Europe in the first season back before being badly derailed by Covid-19 and the loss of their supporters to suffer relegation in the second.

And Currie, the former England international officially voted as United’s greatest-ever player, is optimistic about his former side’s chances next season. “Those three, definitely,” he said of Berge, Ndiaye and Ahmedhodžić.

“And then you’ve got George Baldock, who I think is a Premier League full-back. I do. John Egan as well. Don’t forget Ollie Norwood, he’s been invauable. They’ve been there and done it.

“I’m the biggest optimist there is. I think we’ll stay up. We’ve only got to finish fourth bottom, as everybody says. Are Luton going to stay up? You make your own luck but I think Forest have been lucky to stay up and then it’s a toss up between the others, for me.”

Currie, speaking to Star columnist Alan Biggs, continued: “We’ve gone up, let’s enjoy it. It’s better than another season in the Championship. We can do that in a couple of years, if we’re unlucky.

“Let’s go up and see where we are against the other Premier League teams, and see how good we are. If we have to go down, we’ll come up again.”