2009/10 to 2017/18

Sheffield United never reached the Premier League in the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, spending three in the Championship and six lower down. Their best finish was 8th in the Championship, in 2009/10. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £5m in transfer fees and took in £21.3m, a net profit of £16.3m.

Sheffield United's decade has a large hole in the middle. Eighth in the Championship in 2009/10, they collapsed to 23rd a year later and spent six seasons in League One. When they finally came back, in 2017/18, they finished a very respectable tenth.

The real pain is in the list of players who left. Kyle Walker and Kyle Naughton both joined Tottenham in summer 2009. Matthew Lowton went to Aston Villa, Harry Maguire to Hull for £2.5m in 2014, and Che Adams to Birmingham. Spurs later sold Walker to Manchester City for £45m, and Maguire moved on to Leicester for £12m.

Few clubs on 115.football have a better case for hindsight. Keep Walker and Maguire, both academy graduates, and the Blades are not dropping into League One in 2011. They are building a defence most Premier League clubs would envy.