Sheffield United v Birmingham City: Defender gone, forward going, others warned they could follow
Ben Godfrey's brief spell at Sheffield United has ended, Louie Barry's is soon likely to and manager Chris Wilder has warned others will fall by the wayside too if they play as they did at West Bromwich Albion last week.
Wilder has left his players in no doubt they have points to prove at home to Birmingham City on Saturday, in a game Ben Mee and Sydie Peck will again miss through injury.
York City product Godfrey made his fourth Blades appearance in Wilder's first game back as manager but has not featured since because of unspecified personal problems. Left winger Barry has not featured since October having made four of his nine appearances under Wilder.
"We've been in discussions with Atalanta about terminating the loan deal," Wilder said of Godfrey. "We had a break (clause) in January, so we've advanced that and Ben's no longer with us.
"Louie Barry has got a bit of an issue with his knee so we are in discussions (with Aston Villa) about terminating Louis' loan. We need fit and healthy footballers and he is in competition with Gus (Hamer) off that side. Cal (O'Hare) and Brooksy (Andre Brooks) can play there.
"We need to free some money up as well to use it elsewhere."
"There's a group of players that came into the football club (when Ruben Selles was manager) that need to go out on loan and get some experience and Nils (Zetterstom) is one of them," he confirmed.
"(There was) another chat with the owners this week in terms of cementing the ambition and requirement of what the squad needs.
"There's some players in there that won't take us forward. There's a lot of work to be done in January."
Some performances at the Hawthorns last week threatened to volunteer players to leave.
"If a manager said to me if you win tonight you go five points off the play-offs I'm all over that but maybe that was a little bit too much for some of them and maybe that's the reason that they don't really stay on that journey that is going to happen because it will happen," said Wilder. "We've made individual errors that cost us goals, we've not put teams to bed, but we never looked like getting back into (that) game and that really disappointed me and reminded the players of where I stand, what our core principles are.
"People who want to take on board what I said will be part of the journey and people who won't will pass by the wayside. It's happened right through my career. It's a team that's trying to get back to winning games of football and they're all basically on trial. I suppose really you're always on trial whether you're cemented in the team for a long time (or not).
"I have got an idea of where we need to go and what we need to do. There has to be a plan for me to the board to go, 'We need A, B, C and D to make us strong into the new year and X, Y, Z need to go out.'"
As for the part James Bord will play in the rebuild, Wilder was crystal clear. The poker player and his data analysis firm advised the Blades in the 2025 transfer windows, but Wilder said the Dunfermline Athletic owner, recently linked with buying Sheffield Wednesday, will have "zero contribution to what's happening in January."
The Blades are monitoring Mee's hand injury, and treading carefully with Peck's calf problem. "Siddy's one that we're going to have to be careful with," said Wilder.