Home comforts key to former Millers striker’s move to Bramall Lane

Loanee Sheffield United striker Will Hoskins explains why he believes a return to his roots will help revitalise a career which has been hampered by injury. Richard Hercock reports.

WILL Hoskins has come a long way since coming through the youth system at Millmoor but the former Rotherham United youngster is just happy to be ‘back home’.

For the 25-year-old striker has led something of a pilgrimage since leaving South Yorkshire five years ago.

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From playing against Liverpool in the Premier League with Watford to enduring relegation with Bristol Rovers to League Two last season.

Brighton snapped him up in the summer, his 20 goals in 44 appearances for Rovers not enough to stave off relegation but plenty to attract Gus Poyet on the south coast.

Yet, despite scoring on his Albion debut at Cardiff City, his Brighton career has been blighted by injury which saw him fall down the pecking order.

So when the chance came in the January transfer window to join Sheffield United on loan, Hoskins jumped at the chance. It meant a return to the familiar surroundings of South Yorkshire and on the doorstep of the family home in Nottingham.

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“I was plagued with a lot of injuries at the start of the year, I tore my groin twice and did my knee trying to come back,” he said. “But the key thing for me was my family. I was all the way down there, when you have been injured a lot and things aren’t happening you need a breath of fresh air.

“When this chance came up I thought in my mind ‘I want to come home’ to be around my family, who are from Nottingham, so, literally, it is 35 minutes to my mum’s house from here.

“It’s a big thing. For me being happy is the main thing, and if I am happy then my football will be even better. I know that myself. I have been in the game a long time, I know I am only 25, but I started young and you learn thing about yourself. I know what decisions I need to make.

“Brighton is a great club. I love it to bits. If you could pick it up and move it up here, it would be a tough one. There are great people down there and they are really going places.

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“But you have to be selfish sometimes and when the chance arose to come to United I could not turn it down.”

Hoskins left Rotherham for Watford with team-mate Lee Williamson for a combined fee of £1.2m in 2007. He had loan spells at Millwall and Nottingham Forest before joining Bristol Rovers in 2010.

He celebrated his Blades debut on Saturday with a goal shortly after coming off the substitutes’ bench for striker Richard Cresswell.

“It was perfect for a striker. For me it was a great start, but it’s just a start and something that I have got to carry on,” he said.

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“With the strikers we have got here, we have all got quality, so the law of averages says one of us is going to be scoring. So for me, as much as I want to do well and for it to be me, winning games and promotion is the aim. It’s a good pressure on all of us here.

“After training with United, I feel they have a real good chance of getting promoted. I know the club quite well from being a Rotherham lad when I was younger, so it should be up there.

“I think today we grinded it out, got the ball in the right areas and in the end the goals came along with the win. It was a perfect predator’s goal. They were a bit flat-footed, I was fresh and managed to sneak in behind and get the goal.”

Hoskins is on loan until the summer and refuses to discuss long-term about his playing future.

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“I have not really considered a permanent move. I just want to play,” said Hoskins.

“If I start thinking about that it can hinder other things, it’s me thinking about things again – I am a thinking person – and I don’t want to think, I just want to play football. At the end of the year, that will sort itself out but it’s a nice thing to have.

“I have another year on my Brighton contract, so there would be all those issues, too, but that’s why you pay agents and they do it all for you and take the headache away from you.”