There will be a different goalkeeper between the posts for Sheffield United next season.
Dean Henderson (£5.5m) has returned to parent club Manchester United after two years with the Blades and Chris Wilder has moved quickly to replace the departing loanee, snapping up Aaron Ramsdale (£5.0m) from relegated Bournemouth.
In this Moving Target article, we’ll assess the new shot-stopper’s prospects in Fantasy Premier League ahead of the 2020/21 campaign and whether the changing of the guard will affect Sheffield United’s clean sheet potential.
Ramsdale returns to the club he represented as a youth and has signed a four-year deal with the South Yorkshire side, who reportedly paid around £18.5m to land the 22-year-old shot-stopper.
Upon sealing the deal for Ramsdale’s services, Wilder said:
The goalkeeping situation is something we have to make sure we get right.
This is not about Dean, it’s about bringing Aaron in, but Dean was outstanding for us for two years. We know a lot about Aaron, we’ve watched him develop on loan at Chesterfield and then AFC Wimbledon and obviously we’ve watched him this season too.
I’d like to thank the board for their backing given the situation. Aaron is certainly amongst the best young goalkeepers in this country and we are delighted to have him.
The new Sheffield United number one said himself:
I spoke to him [Wilder] after the fee was agreed and a couple of days later he just said, ‘are we getting it done?’
I knew him, all of his coaching staff and Darren Ward [United’s goalkeeping coach].
It’s a place I always come back to and see friends if I ever get time off over the weekend and family members are only about an hour and a half away, so I get to see them more regularly as well.
Knowing the place, the training ground and the people so well, it definitely feels like home.
The History
Born in May 1998 and still in the embryonic stage of his professional career, Ramsdale hadn’t had any playing experience in the top two tiers of English football before 2019/20.
He had originally joined Sheffield United from Bolton Wanderers in 2013, progressing through the Blades’ academy system and graduating to reserve goalkeeper ahead of the 2016/17 season.
It was, fittingly, Wilder who handed him his senior debut, with the-then teenage custodian making two starts in the opening rounds of the FA Cup in late-2016.
Although Ramsdale didn’t make a single league appearance for the Blades, Bournemouth had already seen enough and snapped up the young shot-stopper for £800,000 in January 2017.
Over two years were to pass before he played a single competitive game for the Cherries and, in between, he was sent out on loan to Chesterfield and Wimbledon.
Ramsdale made 39 league appearances across those two half-season loan spells and it was in the second of them, with the Dons in League One, that he really caught the eye, keeping seven clean sheets in 20 starts and winning their 2018/19 Young Player of the Year award despite only joining the club midway through the campaign.
Returning to the south coast and featuring prominently in pre-season under Eddie Howe, Ramsdale was given the nod between the posts in 2019/20 and went on to start all but one of Bournemouth’s 38 league fixtures.
He kept just five clean sheets (no team registered fewer shut-outs than the Cherries) and conceded on 62 occasions but, as we’ll soon discuss, that was as much a reflection on relegated Bournemouth’s overall defensive shortcomings as it was an indictment on Ramsdale.
Indeed, only a fortnight ago, fans of the Cherries voted their former goalkeeper as their Player of the Season.
The Prospects
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- Forwards: Budget
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