Sheffield United: Contract talks with Iliman Ndiaye make little if any progress

The 22-year-old, who has scored nine goals for Paul Heckingbottom this season, returned to England earlier this week following Senegal’s exit from the tournament. Ndiaye has become one of the most talked about players in the Championship after making an explosive start to the new season, with Heckingbottom recommending over the summer that Bramall Lane’s hierarchy improved the youngster’s terms and conditions. But little progress has been made, prompting suspicions that Ndiaye’s advisors are happy to see the youngster enter the final 12 months of an agreement which is scheduled to expire in 2024.

"Everyone's got to be happy with it,” Heckingbottom said. “It's not that he's asked for this and the club's only offered ‘this’ - it's not even got to that stage. Everyone has to be at a stage where they want to do it.

"Iliman's not said this but if a player, or an agent, or family who look after a player want to run down a contract, they're well within their rights to do that.

"Iliman knows he can earn extra money now. He could be earning a lot more.

"You can get him to the table but what happens (if the player does not want to sign)? There's been conversations. We'll just have to wait and see.”

Despite being capped five times by his country, The Star understands Ndiaye is still one of the lowest paid members of United’s first team squad. The fact his agent is seemingly comfortable with this situation for now will raise fears among the club’s backroom staff that he does not view Ndiaye’s long or even medium term future as being in South Yorkshire. After removing himself from the negotiating process in order to focus on football - United enter tomorrow’s game against Huddersfield Town ranked second in the table - Heckingbottom could attempt to use his relationshi[p with Ndiaye to break the deadlock. But people around the former Boreham Wood attacker are known to still be upset by how they perceive he was treated during a similar round of talks in 2021. After making his senior debut for United in March of that year, it would be another five months before Ndiaye featured again after a now departed member of the board took exception to his request for an increase in salary.

"It was only done last season,” Heckingbottom said, referring to Ndiaye’s contract. “Conversations were ongoing before he signed the last one. It's up to a player to sign the length of deal, the terms, they want.

"The players have got control. If you want to sign someone, they have to be happy with it. If they only want to sign for one, two, three years, what can we do if they're offered six or seven but they don't want to take it?

"It's not like something's just started happening now. The only reason people have started talking about it is because it's come into your domain, that doesn't mean nothing was happening before.

"When you hear there's conversations about a new deal, it doesn't mean it's happening every day.”