Paul Heckingbottom leaves Sheffield United with pride and reputation intact after sacking confirmed

Just over 10 days ago, as he met members of the local and national media to preview Sheffield United’s clash with Bournemouth, Paul Heckingbottom was reminded that his tenure at Bramall Lane had made him the 18th longest-serving manager of the 92 in post at English league clubs.

At that point, it had not even been two years since he accepted the SOS call from United for a second time after the Bramall Lane hierarchy abandoned the Slavisa Jokanović experiment 22 games into his three-year contract. This was a new direction for the Blades, with owner Prince Abdullah and chairman Yusuf Giansiracusa retreating into the shadows. “Paul won’t just be judged on what happens on a Saturday afternoon,” chief executive Stephen Bettis said at Heckingbottom’s unveiling press conference.

But for all the talk of strategic visions and three pillars and all the other corporate nonsense, it always comes down to results and the bleakest one in recent memory, a 5-0 shellacking at Burnley that could have been worse, has ultimately done for Heckingbottom at Bramall Lane after his departure was finally confirmed today - first by the owner in an interview on national radio and then with a club statement.

There is a common consensus in football that once the fans start to turn on a manager, the writing is really on the wall and it is a measure of Heckingbottom’s standing with the majority that it took until the 14th game of a sorry season for the first chants about his position to emerge. Even after the 8-0 embarrassment against Newcastle, and the 5-0 at Arsenal that was supposed to cost him his job according to erroneous media reports, patience seemingly remained. Until, on a day to forget at Turf Moor, it snapped.

Heckingbottom’s final press conference as United manager saw him insist that he could walk out of the stadium with his head held high – a statement that drew howls of derision on social media but was actually hard to argue with across his reign as a whole. United were going nowhere quickly when he took over from Jokanović and breathed fresh life into a promotion push that took them to within a penalty kick of Wembley.

The season following United went one better, adding an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley to automatic promotion for good measure. Under Heckingbottom, striker Oli McBurnie produced his best form in a United shirt; Iliman Ndiaye was unleashed to become the best player outside the top flight. United held their nerve to see off the challenge of Middlesbrough and finished 11 points clear of third-placed Luton, their 91 points a club record.

What made those achievements even more impressive was the state of the club behind the scenes at the time. United were on the road to financial meltdown, culminating in an embargo for non-payment of transfer funds to rival clubs and suppliers going months without the money they were owed for goods and services provided to the club.

Another season in the Championship could have been catastrophic and in that period of increased pressure and scrutiny, Heckingbottom became the de facto face of a football club with a detached owner and absent chairman. He handled weekly questions about matters of finance, rather than football, with great dignity and protected Prince Abdullah, who owed Heckingbottom a real debt of gratitude.

Instead, unable to invest any more funds and unwilling to risk a repeat of what he deemed as the mistakes of last time, the owner rewarded Heckingbottom with a £20m budget for permanent signings; parachuting him into the front line of Premier League combat armed with a peashooter. The euphoria of promotion lasted until Heckingbottom discovered the club’s plan for the new season and those close to him acknowledged he was essentially a dead man walking. Promotion had secured the club’s future but weakened his; Premier League football would come at a price and as manager, he knew he would likely be the one to pay it.

The task only became harder with the loss of Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge; their sales somewhat understandable from a business point of view but catastrophic from a football one. Although United acted quickly to sign Gus Hamer from Coventry, their transfer business was otherwise laboured and left Heckingbottom with new boy Benie Traore, fresh from the Swedish first tier and new to England, and teenagers Will Osula and Antwoine Hackford as his striker options. With no disrespect at all intended to those players, it was a tough ask and winnable games against Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest went by without a point. With the momentum of promotion well and truly torn away, all the signs suggested a season of struggle in South Yorkshire.

His detractors claim that Heckingbottom’s United were hardly convincing in winning promotion and relied heavily on Ndiaye’s individual brilliance – perhaps overlooking the work Heckingbottom put in with him with both the academy side and first team - while those who believe he was too genial a figure based on his amiable media demeanour would be surprised to hear tales of him tensed up and close to fighting with opposition players – and even his own, at the back end of last season – in moments of pure emotion and passion.

He was the ultimate politician who had become well-versed in knowing one thing and projecting often quite the opposite to the media. His assertion that players would be out “for a fortnight” with the myriad of injuries under his watch, before they often missed much longer, became something of an in-joke amongst journalists but alongside trusted lieutenants Stuart McCall and Jack Lester, he was never anything other than a classy and dignified man.

Many clubs would have pulled the trigger immediately after an 8-0 home defeat in front of TV cameras and the watching world but the work he did in getting United to that point did buy him a little more leeway. But the manner of Saturday’s 5-0 defeat at Burnley felt like a big turning point with Heckingbottom, normally fiercely protective of his players in the press, making a pointed observation that he felt like singing along with the fans who chanted “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” as their team unravelled in front of them.

A change felt inevitable and Heckingbottom can indeed hold his head high as United go back to the future with Chris Wilder. His short-term remit is keeping the Blades up but more than one eye needs to be fixed firmly on the future, after their summer transfer approach and 19 members of their 25-man squad potentially leaving in the summer. Whatever happens from here on in, it certainly won't be dull. As life at this football club rarely is.