He played nearly 400 times for Sheffield United - look what he's now doing in China | OneFootball

Nick Montgomery's post-playing career has gone down an interesting path after his Sheffield United playing stint

When you think of the Sheffield United team that spent the majority of the 2000s in the second tier of English football, there are a handful of iconic, long-serving names that you think of.

The likes of Paddy Kenny and Chris Morgan were staples of the noughties Blades, but even moreso was Nick Montgomery, who despite being born in Leeds and spent time playing for United as a kid, made the move to the red half of the Steel City as a scholar.

Montgomery spent 12 years as a professional at Bramall Lane, and it would shape a big part of his on-field career.

Nick Montgomery was an absolute Sheffield United stalwart

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Handed his debut by Sheffield United boss Neil Warnock in October 2000 not long before his 19th birthday, Montgomery was in and out of the starting 11 as a teenager, with the club at that point looking to end a seven-year stint in the second tier by returning to the Premier League.

In truth, Montgomery would not be a regular, out-and-out starter for the Blades in his first few years at Bramall Lane, and it took until the 2003-04 season where he'd really cement himself under Warnock's management, playing alongside the veteran Stuart McCall for the most part.

2004-05 would be another mixed bag for Montgomery when it came to minutes, but the 2005-06 promotion-winning season was one where he appeared 39 times and play an important role - he'd go on to make 26 appearances in his one and only Premier League campaign for the Blades as they were relegated straight back to the Championship.

Gaining experience with every season though, Montgomery would go on to start regularly when fit for the next few years, but the 2011-12 League One campaign would be his final one in the red and white stripes - he fell out of favour under Danny Wilson, and his contract was terminated early in the 2012-13 season to allow him to find a new club.

By the time his United career came to a close, Montgomery had played 398 times for them in all competitions and was a modern-day cult hero, albeit with just one promotion to his name in that time.

Nick Montgomery's leadership meant he was always going to be a manager

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Montgomery was only 30 years of age when he had his United contract terminated, which allowed him to start the next part of his footballing journey on the other side of the world with Central Coast Mariners.

The Mariners were the sister club of the Blades, meaning there was still a strong link, and Montgomery would play the final six years of his career in Australia - five of those at Central Coast, where he racked up 133 appearances, with the last season at Wollongong Wolves.

It was Montgomery's move to Australia though that was able to open up a big post-playing opportunity though, which you'd have assumed would come naturally to him given his leadership on the pitch.

And following his retirement as a player in 2018, the former midfielder returned to Central Coast Mariners as an assistant coach, before then landing the head coach role three years later in 2021.

He'd lead the Mariners to A-League Championship glory two years later in what is the highest honour in Australian football, and naturally that saw him sought after elsewhere, and he was headhunted by Hibernian in September 2023 - returning to a country in Scotland who he played for at youth level.

Unlike his time Down Under though, Montgomery had little success in Edinburgh. With just 12 wins from 37 matches, he was sacked by the Hibs board before the end of the 2023-24 season - it's not something that he has let hold him down though.

Nick Montgomery now finds himself out in China after Premier League experiences

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Montgomery didn't find himself out of work for long - just a month after his dismissal by Hibs, he was headhunted by Ange Postecoglou for his Tottenham coaching staff, and his actual assistant from Central Coast and Hibernian - Sergio Raimundo - also took up a similar role in North London.

Part of the Spurs setup that won the UEFA Europa League under Big Ange, the Aussie and his coaching staff departed after that success, and they all soon found their way to Nottingham Forest not long into the 2025-26 season, but that lasted just 39 days before Evangelos Marinakis wielded the axe.

Whilst Postecoglou found himself heading to Saudi Arabia to manage Cristiano Ronaldo at Al-Nassr earlier this summer, Montgomery would not follow him to the Middle East - that's because he already found himself back in work at the start of 2026, and it was a managerial job of his own.

Chinese outfit Beijing Guoan hired Montgomery - now 44 years old - to replace Spanish coach Quique Setién, and with a current average attendance of 47,188 for home matches (the second-highest behind Dalian Yingbo), it's a club that is very well supported, and that brings pressure.

One-time winners of the Chinese Super League in 2009, Beijing Guoan currently sit third and a fair way behind leaders Chengdu Rongcheng, and unlike the mid-2010s, there's no longer the massive money involved in football in the Far East that they experienced for a few years.

Gone are the level of players like Ramires, Oscar, Jackson Martinez, Carlos Tevez and others that arrived at various Chinese clubs around 10 years ago, but Montgomery still holds a big job - could he one day manage in the EFL?