Former Sheffield United man offers verdict on big Blades rebuild amid "fresh blood" encouragement

A former Sheffield United stalwart believes his old club will make "wholesale changes" in the summer in a bid to avoid the hangover from their latest chastening Premier League season. The Blades are bottom of the table with 10 games to go and on course for their second relegation in the space of three years.

Many members of Chris Wilder's current squad are veterans of their first climb into the top-flight back in 2019 but the emergence of young players including Ollie Arblaster and Andre Brooks this season has at least offered some encouragement for the summer. As many as 19 players could walk away from Bramall Lane this summer - a combination of expiring contracts and loans and players with relegation release clauses - with a huge rebuild facing boss Wilder in the summer.

Baldock epitomises what Unitedites want amid potential future hint

Former Blades defender Neill Collins has suffered the experience of a poor relegation season before, as a young member of the Sunderland squad which returned to the Championship in 2005/06 with just 15 points all season - at that point a Premier League record. But he also tasted the other side of the coin the following year when Sunderland won the title at the first attempt and stayed in the top-flight for a decade.

"There are two ways to get promoted out of the Championship," Scot Collins, now in charge of United's neighbours Barnsley, told our sister 'paper the Yorkshire Post. "You have to have a hunger, maybe a team that's not experienced it before, which could mean wholesale changes. The other way, as the likes of Leicester have done, is to keep hold of a lot of your quality and ultimately you're just too strong for that division.

The 19 players set to leave Bramall Lane this summer as things stand

"I suspect Sheffield United might need to be the first. Watching them from the side they look like they need to rejuvenate that squad and go again because I think they've probably suffered from the fact their players have climbed the mountain, gone down and climbed it again. Now it's just a little too much for them, and they need fresh blood."

Amongst the players in the final six months of their contracts are double promotion-winners including John Egan, George Baldock and Ollie Norwood while Chris Basham, who has been on the Blades journey since the League One days, is uncertain if he will play top-level football again after the horror injury he suffered away at Fulham earlier this season.

Wilder returned to his boyhood club in December to replace Heckingbottom, sacked after a 5-0 defeat at relegation rivals Burnley despite leading the Blades to the play-offs and then automatic promotion, with an FA Cup semi-final for good measure, during his two permanent seasons in charge at Bramall Lane.

"When they last came down, Paul did a phenomenal job and almost over-achieved," added Collins, who played almost 180 times for United between 2011 and 2016 after his earlier short loan spell from Sunderland. "Had he got them into the play-offs and not got promoted, he'd probably still be in a job."