McCabe is plotting new path to the top for Blades

McCabe believes that the Blades have given previous managers too much flexibility in the transfer market, allowing knee-jerk signings rather than well-scouted targets.

Now, with today marking the opening of the loan transfer window in the Football League and with the arrival of joint-owner Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, McCabe insists those days are over.

“In the past it’s been instant, ‘he’s available, so get him’,” said McCabe, who has poured £90m into the Blades over the last decade.

“It has failed us, the lesson has been learned. It’s cost us dearly, both on the pitch and also financially. It’s not worked. It’s a different system of recruitment which is highly professional which we are bringing in.

“If we had a fault in recent years it was giving the manager too much immediate flexibility. We ended up with players coming in who weren’t on our radar. They have been instant acquisitions that have not succeeded for us.

“What we have now are players on the radar, so we are highly unlikely to bring anyone to Sheffield United who has not been tracked by us for some considerable time.

“Fans need not be too impatient. This is going to be a transition that won’t take decades, but we have set up a new system and our way will work.

“What we have with the Prince’s investment is more funds to bring players on board, improving the first team. But it still means we are going to select players in a proper manner.

“Last year we brought in players in the January transfer window and, not wanting to castigate them, but they didn’t work, they weren’t selective choices.”

While McCabe is critical of signings made by previous managers he takes his share of the blame.

He accepts the new recruitment policy sits with his belief that the Blades cannot buy their way to the Premier League, as he claims they did in 2005-06 with some high-profile additions under Neil Warnock.

“At the helm, you take the blame for a strategy that worked or didn’t work,” said McCabe. “When I took control I thought, ‘what do I do with the club?’ I don’t like things to stand still, it’s in one’s instincts.

“I said we had to get back to the Premiership. I actually said we would buy our way out of the Championship in 2005-06, which we did. In January we bought (Garry) Flitcroft, (Geoff) Horsfield, Bruce Dyer, Brian Deane, (Ade) Akinbiyi. Supporters forget. We hardly played any of them, but it was to guarantee promotion and we did it.”

United’s fall from the Premier League has been painful and McCabe believes the club have suffered “wretched luck”, starting with the infamous Carlos Tevez affair.

“We have had the most horrendous, wretched luck. Anybody in the world has got to acknowledge that,” said the lifelong Blades fan.

“There was the Tevez affair when we should never have been relegated; the play-offs which we never can win; then automatic promotion which seemed definite suddenly failed. Don’t ask me why it’s gone wrong, but we have had wretched luck.

“The Premiership has changed dramatically. To try and do it the way we did it in 2005-06, I would need a billion pounds. I could afford it in those days, but the gap has widened so much. Even across the city (Sheffield Wednesday) they are not English-owned.

“What I did in 2005-06 to buy our way out of the Championship, you can’t quite do it the same way. That was another reason why I had to work on finding a partner.

“Along the way, we have changed and invested in the youth side of Sheffield United. The loan markets have worked against us, we have spent a fortune on failing, spent a fortune on players who were bad choices, bad recruits.

“That has changed now. The players we have brought in now, such as Jose Baxter and Florent Cuvelier, have great potential, are not at their peak and will improve.

“We are much more sophisticated at Sheffield United now, in having players on our radar and being traced week by week. Some of those players, with the Prince’s investment, will give us the firepower to go up.”

Financial fair play rules in League One do not limit the Blades to what they can spend on transfer fees and bonus payments, as long as their wage bill is no larger than 60 per cent of their annual turnover.

“In this league, the transfer fee does not count as being part of the player wage bill,” said McCabe.

“We are still not going to pay stupid sums in salaries, but it gives us that firepower to have the money to bring transfers in.”

United kept the Prince’s arrival secret until after the summer transfer window closed so as not to alert rivals and see an inflation of player valuations due to their new-found wealthy backer.

“The deal was concluded at the end of August,” revealed McCabe.

“We weren’t going to tell everybody until the transfer window closed or else the agency world thinks this lot can afford to pay more.

“The best player can break his blessed leg, or cruciate. If adaptation is required because of injuries, we will adapt. That’s where the benefit of having a partner with brain power and financial power helps.”