You wait four months for a first Premier League start of the season and then it’s over after just 45 minutes. That was the fate which befell John Fleck on Saturday afternoon, the former Rangers midfielder hauled off at the interval as Sheffield United suffered the latest in a long line humiliating defeats.
John Fleck, one of The Blades key players under Chris Wilder as they finished in the top half back in 2019/20, certainly isn’t enjoying his return to the top-flight quite as much as he did the last time.
Sheffield United battered by Burnley
The Glasgow-born playmaker, who moved south of the border after rising through the ranks at Rangers, finally started a Premier League game for the first time this season when Sheffield United travelled to Burnley over the weekend.
45 rather miserable minutes later, however, Fleck was back in familiar surroundings on the sidelines. A booking on the half-hour was about his only contribution, hauled off at the interval with Sheffield United 2-0 down and heading for a five-goal shellacking away to a Burnley team who celebrated promotion alongside them back in the spring.
As the Sheffield Star point out, Fleck – his performance rated at just 2/10 – was something of a ‘surprise’ introduction in midfield. A last roll of the dice, perhaps, from a manager who appears to have run out of road. According to The Guardian, Paul Heckingbottom will be sacked, to be replaced by the man who turned Fleck into a stand-out Premier League operator the first time around.
Wilder, they add, will be parachuted in at the earliest opportunity.
A missed opportunity for Rangers-linked duo?
Fleck is not the only Sheffield United player with a connection north of the border, meanwhile. Auston Trusty and Benie Traore, who moved to the Steel City over the summer for a combined £9 million, were reportedly both transfer targets for Fleck’s former employers Rangers.
Who could blame Trusty and Traore now for wishing they’d chosen a different destination?
