Blades fans let down by owner

I have a good friend who is a Blades fan who is having a major operation in Sheffield this week.  At least he will be spared the sight of more likely collapses by the team with fans walking out before half time.

Confidence is a key factor in football and its absence can compound weaknesses in a team.

The culpability for Sheffield United’s miserable state ultimately lies with Prince Abdullah, the club’s Saudi owner, whose meagre financial backing and rank incompetence makes it an enduring mystery that he presided over promotions from the Championship twice in four years. Both of those ascents, though, owed everything to stellar work by Wilder and Heckingbottom, and were achieved in spite, not because, of Abdullah’s stewardship.  

It is hard to recall a promoted club beginning a campaign with a team so clearly diminished from the last. Berge and Ndiaye were in the final years of their contracts and, after failing to agree new deals, the club chose to sell them for a combined total of about £32 million, on the eve of a campaign that would generate six times that sum if they survived for only one season.

When replacements finally did arrive, the season was already under way and, of the ten arrivals — three of whom joined on loan, the rest for a collective £56 million — only Cameron Archer, Gustavo Hamer and McAtee were anywhere near the required standard.

Thoughts are already turning to next season and the respite of a return to the second tier. Abdullah’s attempts to sell the club have so far been in vain. A deal with the Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi collapsed last year and Mmobuosi has since been accused of fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The previous suitor, Henry Mauriss, is now serving time in a California jail for wire fraud.

Some leading Premier League sides would like to cut back promotion and relegation with the Championship and Sheffield United's plight (and to an extent that of Burnley) reinforces their argument. Before the season pundits were predicting that Luton would struggle, but they have put up a fighting performance.