Sheffield United boss Ruben Selles on whether his young players need protecting with more experience amid tough run
THE fact that Sheffield United now have three former Premier League stars - all in their thirties - on trial might suggest that Ruben Selles is concerned about a perceived lack of experience in his ranks amid a worrying start to 2025-26.
As far as the Blades chief is concerned, age does not come into his thinking. He would beg to differ.
After four successive losses in the Championship and EFL Cup at the start of the campaign, Selles is quick to stress that there is no extra onus on senior players to step up and ‘protect’ some of his younger crop whose experience of this sort of situation is more limited.
For the Spaniard - who is running the rule over former Liverpool and West Ham striker Danny Ings, 33, alongside his fellow former England international in ex-Southampton winger Nathan Redmond, 31 - experience constitutes a grey area.
Selles, who will make a decision regarding another trialist in former Burnley and Brentford defender Ben Mee, 35, shortly, said: "You can argue ‘what is experience’ and ‘what is not’. We have a player like Tyler Bindon with more than 100 games for Reading and he is 20 years old.
"When we are in this kind of situation, all of us need to just try, first of all, to take care of ourselves and secondly, to try and take care of your team-mates and all of your people.
"Sometimes, you are 16, 17 or 18 years old, but have the character and the passion just to go in front of things. Sometimes, you can be 40 years old and not have that character.
"I think it’s more about the person. Obviously in the dressing room, you have different characters."
A torrent of boos greeted Selles and his players at both half-time and the final whistle of Saturday’s home game with Millwall following a rough start to his Blades tenure.
United’s start to a campaign is their worst at this level in 30 years since losing their opening five matches at the start of the 1995-96 season.
Their improvement in the second half against the Lions at least gave Selles an inkling of hope as he seeks to sign off before the first international break with a much-needed fillip against Middlesbrough on Saturday.
Joint-leaders Boro, by contrast, are enjoying their best start to a league season since 1994-95, having won their opening three league matches.
Selles continued: "If I lose a game playing 90 minutes like we did in the second half, that can happen to me.
"If we lose because we are not connected in some of the moments, then I think we have a job to do. I was pleased with the second half, but think we have much more to offer to this league.
"I didn’t change a bit at half-time. We just had a talk and said: ‘Listen, if we are worried about what is going to happen at the end, we are going to lose a game’.
"We are already losing the game, why don’t we play the game we want to play? And do the things we know we have to do.
"We looked each other in the eyes and said ‘let's go for it and see what happens’. People saw the team we want to be in the second half.
"But we don’t need to wait until things are happening in the game, we need those things to happen from the very beginning."