Sheffield United: Why Chris Wilder sees John Egan as a future Blades captain after honour of leading Republic of Ireland for the first time

Egan captained the Republic of Ireland to a 3-1 victory over Bulgaria at the Aviva on Tuesday evening, after being handed a rare start by Mick McCarthy.

The defender later described the honour as the greatest of his career – and Wilder today suggested that Egan would again wear the armband in the future.

The 26-year-old was captain of Brentford when he moved to United in a £4m deal, which was a club record fee for United at the time.

And Wilder said: “John has to be an organiser, with the way we play. He sees a lot of things, and he’s a future Sheffield United captain. Without a doubt.

“Billy Sharp is obviously the captain of the club at the minute, and Ollie [Norwood] has taken that on when Billy’s not playing. Ollie has that experience of captaining his country as well.

“It’s important we surround ourselves with those types of characters and John epitomises everything we’re trying to do.

“He’s honest, committed, enthusiastic, and he wants to win.

“And he’s a good footballer as well.

“He’s putting an awful lot of pressure on the two Republic of Ireland centre-halves and all he can do is keep playing well for us.

“But I know Mick wouldn’t give him the captaincy if he didn’t think as highly of John as we do.”