Return of the Mac

United’s 10th signing of the transfer window. Welcome back, James McAtee:

It’s a great signing, albeit just a loan: this guy is still very much in Man City’s plans for the future. And I love the Twitter video announcing his return. (B)eagle-eyed viewers will recognise bits of the A57 Snake Pass (Manchester to Sheffield, see?) at the beginning of the clip, and that celebration after that goal at Blackpool…

Being honest, it’s not a bad line-up for the Blades overall, in what we all know is going to be a very tough season. Sure, it’s not full of stellar 100 million megaplayers like ManU or Citeh or billion pound spending Chelsea(!), but it’s a decent squad.

And that being the case, I just don’t know why we couldn’t have got more of these deals done earlier? We clearly needed more players in our first three games, and we are not in a position – nor were we ever – in which we could afford to have a delayed start to the season.

And yet…

OK. So now, are we at full strength? Is that it?

Or do we have a late, late signing up our sleeves? Cut off is 11pm UK time.

Transfer

Sometimes, football transfer windows are all about who you sign, and what they can do for your team. This time around for us, it was more about who we could hold onto, given our current lofty league position, a few desirable players, and a pending takeover bid for the club.

And it didn’t look good, with our Norwegian midfielder, Sander Berge, left out of the squad for last weekend’s FA Cup tie on instructions from the board, and the blue side of Liverpool (amongst others) after our Senegalese star forward, Illiman Ndiaye.

There’s obviously more to the team that just those two, but their influence can’t be understated and losing either one of them would have been a huge blow.

Thankfully, the club owner made a decision not to turn in a quick profit, and told the bidding teams from the Premier League (and beyond) that we were not selling anyone. That was good.

And then he stuck to his word. That was even better.

And so once the chaos and rumour of the transfer window was closed, the club’s social media team chose to advertise the next game with this image:

Both still here with us. Both – hopefully – Ultimate Champions.

We didn’t buy anyone – we couldn’t (it’s complicated) – but that wasn’t what mattered this time around.
Holding onto all our players has given us as much of a boost as any new signing would have.

It feels good to be a Blade this week.
And look – he seems happy to still be at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane.

Onward and upward*.

* T&Cs apply