Sheffield United striker Oli McBurnie opens up on possible future plans after coach chats

McBurnie has many years left in him as a player and, at 26, is surely in the best form of his Bramall Lane career as he approaches the final six months of the initial contract he signed when he arrived from Swansea in a £20m deal back in 2019. But there is a growing trend in modern-day football of players undertaking their badges while still playing, to give them an option of transitioning into coaching once they retire and also offer a different understanding of the game while they are still immersed in it.

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Billy Sharp and Ben Osborn have completed some of their coaching badges already while John Egan and Enda Stevens are also understood to be exploring the possibility, with the help of the Irish FA. And McBurnie told The Star: “Jack [Lester, United coach] is on to me about getting my badges done. He said that when he was a player, the furthest thing from his mind was being a coach and now he does it, he loves it. He keeps getting on to me about doing them and saying I'd be a good coach. We'll have to see. He keeps getting on at me, but it's too long hours for me at the moment. They get in at like seven and don't leave until six!”

The hours, and pay, may be different but McBurnie’s transition into coaching may have already begun. He and skipper Sharp have been tasked by United’s staff to prepare presentations on opposition defences for their fellow strikers – an exercise the Scottish international agrees can benefit them too. “You look at it from a different perspective. Instead of being told what to do, you doing your own thinking and seeing things,” McBurnie said.

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“When me and Bill did the presentation, we saw the same things and it was nice to come from that side of things. It does change your perspective; it opens your mind a little bit. Jack always says to me, why not? You might never use them but it's never going to hurt you to go and do them. If he gets at me a few more times I might have to go and do them just to keep him off me.”

Of more pressing concern, for both McBurnie and United fans, is the issue of his more immediate future. The striker is scheduled to become a free agent in the summer and even if United do have a clause in their favour allowing them to extend it by a further season, that will only take him to 2024 if it is invoked. His situation - and his form this season, going into the World Cup break with nine goals in his last 14 outings – will have placed rival clubs on red alert. Rangers, a team McBurnie has made no secret of his love for, have been linked, while his career goals record at Championship level will attract any side with aspirations of getting out of the second-tier.

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