Sheffield United star discusses Jack O’Connell’s fitness bid as unhappy milestone approaches

The influential Blade hasn’t played since a 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa in the Premier League back in September 2020, with his absence being keenly felt that season as United were relegated from the top-flight.

Paul Heckingbottom, the United manager, has repeatedly insisted there is no pressure on O’Connell in terms of his rehabilitation, but did recently admit he has held conversations with the 28-year-old “about what may be next” with the defender putting his sports science degree to good use by helping United’s strength and conditioning coaches in the gym.

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And Chris Basham, one third of the back three alongside O’Connell and John Egan that saw United win promotion to the Premier League and then finish ninth, discussed his teammate’s fitness bid on Star and Telegraph columnist Alan Biggs’ Talking Sheffield TV show this week.

“I see Jack every day, he’s still got a smile on his face and is still working,” Basham said.

“Everyone knows Jack O’Connell by how had he works, in the gym and in training, and he’s doing that now.

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“He’d desperate to get his boots back on and get back out there. Things just take time and sometimes longer than they should do. Sometimes things are quicker.

“Like the manager says, we’re going to give him time as much as we can. He’s still got seven or eight months I think on his contact here, maybe, and he’ll keep pushing as much as he can.”

O’Connell adjusted to life in the top flight as well as any of his teammates and was surely on the cusp of a call-up to the senior England squad before injury, with senior boss Gareth Southgate travelling to Bramall Lane a number of times in United’s first season back in the top flight.

Although ostensibly to keep tabs on the progress of then-United loan goalkeeper Dean Henderson, O’Connell’s performances – and Southgate’s preference at the time for a back three – will have surely put the defender in his thoughts.

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In the end, Tyrone Mings, Aston Villa’s left-footed centre-half, received a call up to play on the left side of England’s defence. Given the option, very few – if any at all – United fans would swap Mings for a fully fit and firing O’Connell.

The former Brentford defender is out of contract next summer, however, and has been omitted from United’s squad list they submitted to the EFL earlier this month, giving the Blades the option to register a free agent if their defensive crisis deepens between now and the opening of the January transfer window.

“He’s desperate to get out there with the lads and we love him, we love him around the place and know how good a footballer he is,” Basham added of O’Connell.

“If he didn’t have the injury he’d be right up there at the elite level, probably playing international football.

“Probably in the Premier League, he’d have been very close I’d have thought. Left footed, outstanding physique. A tank, basically.”

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