QPR laughed to the bank with Sheffield United’s £5m splurge | OneFootball

Luke Freeman was an experienced Championship operator when Sheffield United paid a record fee for him, but it didn't go as they would have hoped.

Luke Freeman was Queens Park Rangers' Player of the Year in 2019, which provoked Sheffield United to drop a club-record transfer fee on the playmaker, but things didn't work out as they might have hoped.

By the end of the 2018-19 season, Sheffield United and Queens Park Rangers were in very different positions in the Championship. The Blades had just secured a return to the Premier League following an absence of twelve years, while Rangers had just finished the season in 19th place in the table, just three above the relegation places.

But when Sheffield United came to strengthen their squad ahead of their return to the top-flight, they moved for a player who'd been a solid performer in the Championship but who had never kicked a ball in the Premier League. And in paying a club-record £5 million fee for attacking midfielder and winger Luke Freeman, they made a deal that they would end up coming to regret.

Because while the Blades would very much come to enjoy their first season back in the top-flight for more than a decade, the Freeman transfer wouldn't work out for them at all, leaving Queens Park Rangers laughing all the way to the bank.

Freeman shone in the EFL after failing to make the grade in the Premier League with Arsenal - QPR success followed

Perhaps the biggest clue that Luke Freeman and Sheffield United wouldn't work out came at the start of his professional career. Freeman had played just one game in the EFL for Gillingham, becoming their youngest ever player at just 15-years-old, before he was whisked away to Arsenal in January 2008.

But over the next five years he couldn't muster a single appearance for the Gunners, being sent out on loan to Yeovil Town and Stevenage before making his move to Stevenage permanent in 2012. He ran up 129 appearances in total at Broadhall Way before moving on to Bristol City in 2014.

The move was a success. Freeman was an ever-present as City were promoted from League One in 2015, and went on to play 41 games for them in the Championship the following season.

In January 2018 he was signed by Queens Park Rangers for a reported £300,000, and he shone in his one full season at Loftus Road, ending the 2018-19 season as their Player of the Year, with eight goals and six assists in 43 appearances for them.

Injuries became an increasing issue as Freeman's career started to slide following Sheffield United transfer

Sheffield United, meanwhile, were celebrating promotion back to the Premier League following an absence of twelve years, and needed strengthening. Luke Freeman's reputation had grown over his time with Bristol City and QPR, and he became their first signing of the summer transfer window when they paid a club record fee of £5 million to take him to Bramall Lane.

Initially, things were going okay for Freeman. He played in each of the Blades' first four games of the season, starting three of them in central midfield after making his league debut for them from the bench on the opening weekend of the season on the wing against Bournemouth, but his opportunities soon started to dry up.

But Freeman's style of play didn't necessarily suit Chris Wilder's style, and he was soon supplanted in the first team by John Fleck. When the Blades' results started to significantly improve, his first-team appearances became increasingly rare. 2019-20 was the season that was interrupted by the Covid outbreak, and he got a second opportunity when play resumed in June, following a three-month break.

Having largely been left out of the squad over the last couple of months before play stopped altogether, he was back on the bench for their first two matches back, but an injury kept him out of the team for most of the remainder of the season. Sheffield United finished the season in a very impressive 9th place in the Premier League, but in total Freeman only made eleven appearances for them, with seven of them coming from the bench.

Injuries would become an increasingly persistent issue for him. By the summer of 2020, it seemed that Chris Wilder had been enough and sent him out on a season-long loan to Nottingham Forest. Forest had an option to buy, but a hernia got in the way of that and they ended up not taking the option up. Returning to Bramall Lane, he made a further eight appearances for Sheffield United throughout the first half of the 2021-22 season, but a loan move to Millwall resulted in just one appearance for them before a hamstring injury resulted in him returning to Bramall Lane.

He was released by the club at the end of that season and moved on to Luton Town, making 26 appearances in their team that won promotion to the Premier League in 2023, but after failing to appear at all at the start of their season in the top-flight, he left the club by mutual consent, moving down to the National League to play for Barnet.

Luke Freeman had impressed for Queens Park Rangers and Bristol City, and a growing reputation made Sheffield United's move for the player understandable. But it would be QPR that would have the last laugh over this transfer, with the Blades ultimately having to admit that this record-breaking transfer hadn't worked out by releasing him at the end of his contract.