By David Woods

12th Mar, 2021 | 10:27am

Former Leeds boss Paul Heckingbottom to take over at Sheffield United

Jim White has claimed that former Leeds United manager Paul Heckingbottom is set to take over as caretaker manager at Sheffield United.

Chris Wilder is reportedly leaving Sheffield United by ‘mutual consent’, with the talkSPORT host claiming that an official announcement will be made around midday on Friday. [Jim White Show, Friday, 10am]

Heckingbottom could be in the Blades dugout as soon as the game against Leicester on Sunday after the shock news broke.

Heckingbottom was brought in as Leeds manager following the sacking of Thomas Christiansen midway through the 17/18 campaign but was himself sacked at the end of the season.

That followed a run of poor results. Marcelo Bielsa joined in the summer and led Leeds to the Premier League.

Heckingbottom is currently the Blade’s Under-23s manager.

Good luck to the Blades

Well, we weren’t expecting to hear this, this morning. Cornflakes were spat out.

All we can say to Sheffield United fans is good luck. Heckingbottom was completely out of his depth at Leeds and while he might have felt he didn’t get a proper run at the club, results under him were catastrophic.

Bielsa was his successor and that was such a top-level upgrade it’s hard to compare the two.

Heckingbottom is set to take over on a temporary basis but we know what can happen if a new man gets a strong string of results. You’ve only got to look at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

He’s got almost no chance of keeping Sheffield United up this season but it will be fascinating to see how he does and if he can make a bid for the job on a permanent basis.

You can only imagine the reaction from Leeds fans at the moment, especially after Wilder called us ‘muppets‘ after pipping us to promotion.

These two tweets sum it up perfectly.

In other Leeds United news, Chris Kamara shares class email he received from Marcelo Bielsa – Leeds fans will love this