Former England international Sue Smith claims that Sheffield United need a goalscorer.
This is despite the fact that captain Billy Sharp has already scored 22 Championship goals this season. David McGoldrick has 11.
“He’s (Chris Wilder) got a real togetherness but I was thinking are they lacking a striker, an out and out striker? I know they have brought [Gary] Madine in who could be the man for them, I know he scored two goals against Reading,” Smith said on Sky Sports, as quoted by The Sheffield Star.
“But have they got somebody who is going to score a lot of goals that is going to get them promoted? Maybe they have that now.”
Unsurprisingly, Wilder does not agree with Smith’s sentiment. The Blades manager responded to the claims after Sharp put pen to paper on a new two-and-a-half year contract.
“Some parts of the media think we need a centre forward, we feel we’ve got one, we feel we’ve got four actually, five,” Wilder told the official website.
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Between them Sharp and McGoldrick have scored 33 of United’s 58 league goals this season. However, new signing Madine made his mark last weekend.
The Cardiff City loanee scored his first two goals since arriving at Bramall Lane as Wilder’s men beat Reading 4-0.
Scott Hogan, another January loan signing, also started that match but is yet to start his tally. Conor Washington completes the Blades’ options upfront, although is also yet to score after signing from QPR last summer.
Of course the real surprise in Smith’s claims is the form of Sharp. Only Norwich City’s Teemu Pukki has scored more than the Blades skipper in England’s second tier this term.
Yet even Pukki can’t match Sharp’s minutes to goal ratio in 2018/19. Of all the players that have netted at least 10 times, no one gets near the 33-year-old’s goal every 104 minutes.