Sheffield United took a gamble on prolific Scottish Championship striker – Blades didn’t get what Charlton & AFC Wimbledon did.

When Sheffield United recruited Lyle Taylor from Falkirk in 2013, they took a bet. It did not work out for them, but it did for the other clubs he had played for after returning to his hometown.

Taylor was already in his third season in the English Football League when he joined Sheffield United in July 2013. He’d began his career at Millwall but failed to break into the first team, and a couple of years at Bournemouth had only resulted in loans to non-league clubs and more frustration. However, a transfer to Falkirk in 2012 proved to bring out his potential. He scored 24 league goals in 34 appearances for the Bairns in 2012-13, attracting interest from English clubs. At the end of the 2012-13 season, he appeared to be on his way to Rotherham United, but they were unable to agree on personal terms. Sheffield United made their move just over a week later. The Blades were in League One at the time and had recently been eliminated from the play-offs by Yeovil Town. And Taylor’s ambitions appeared to be a viable solution. They paid an undisclosed price to bring the striker to Bramall Lane.

Taylor and Sheffield United didn’t hit it off

However, with David Weir in charge, the Blades had a disastrous start to the 2013-14 season, and by the time he was fired after just four months, they were third from bottom in the standings, having scored the fewest goals in the entire division. Taylor had not scored any of the six points they had managed. Two days after his dismissal, Weir scored his first two goals for the club, but they couldn’t save a 3-2 loss to Coventry. Nigel Clough was the new manager, but first-team opportunities were restricted. His two goals at Coventry were his only League goals all season, and he was farmed out to Partick Thistle for the second half.

Although the Blades rebounded from a poor start to finish eighth, Taylor’s stint with the club was coming to an end, despite having a year left on his contract. After just one season, he joined Scunthorpe United.

Taylor finally clicks once back in his home city of London

Taylor went on to become a dangerous striker, but not at Scunthorpe. He scored three goals in 18 games for them and spent another loan spell with Partick before joining AFC Wimbledon in 2015. When I returned to London, it all made sense. By the end of his first season, he had scored 23 League goals, the first of which came in Wimbledon’s League Two play-off final victory over Plymouth. The London-born striker subsequently moved to Charlton Athletic, where he scored every other game until joining Nottingham Forest. He’s still playing, having scored 10 League goals for Colchester United during the 2024/25 season.

And Sheffield United weren’t significantly better off without him. It took until 2017 for them to return to the Championship, and by the beginning of the 2020s, they were back in the Premier League. They may look back and wonder whether they would have arrived sooner if Lyle Taylor had delivered for them as he did for AFC Wimbledon and Charlton Athletic.

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