Sheffield United target transfer raid for £10m Aston Villa player | OneFootball

Sheffield United's 2025-26 may be fizzling out, but the Blades have already got one eye on a winger who's impressed on loan at Deepdale this season.

Sheffield United have had a disappointing 2025-26 season, but they've already identified a winger who's impressed elsewhere in the Championship for a potential summer move.

The last twelve months have been something of a rollercoaster ride for Sheffield United, but the 2025-26 Championship season will end with them having been unable to completely turn around their atrocious start to it all.

Eight defeats in their opening nine matches of the season left the Blades in the relegation places, and while the damage caused by their decision to replace Chris Wilder with Ruben Selles after their play-off final defeat to Sunderland was partially undone by sacking Selles and bringing Wilder back to Bramall Lane, it wasn't enough to completely recover their season.

A 3-2 home defeat at the hands of Preston North End in their final home game of the season has more-or-less condemned them to a bottom-half finish this season. A big win in their final match at Derby could yet push them as high as twelfth, but this would also require Preston, Queens Park Rangers and Bristol City to drop points in their final matches as well.

Sheffield United could be set to make a move for Aston Villa forward Lewis Dobbin

The player who scored the winning goal for PNE at Bramall Lane this weekend is now being reported as a potential summer transfer target for Sheffield United.

Lewis Dobbin's 76th-minute goal proved to be the difference between these two teams at Bramall Lane on Saturday, and the 23-year-old is now said to be a reported target ahead of the summer.

The Sheffield Star report that United have already started drawing up a list of wingers, which is described as one of the "priority positions" that they need to fill.

And Dobbin is very much on that shortlist, and that was prior to his performance against the Blades, in which he perhaps could've netted a hat-trick, if not for better finishing in-front of goal.

Dobbin has been on loan at Preston all season from Aston Villa, and has scored ten goals in forty appearances for them this season in all competitions.

Prior to this, he's also had spells on loan from Villa with West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City in the Championship, as well as Derby County in League One, so he is a player with plenty of experience at EFL level and appears to be on the improve.

Lewis Dobbin has impressed on loan at Preston North End this season

In terms of bringing in youngsters who can play on the wing and who are on the fringe of Premier League first-team squads, Sheffield United have a clear cautionary tale from last summer.

Louie Barry signed for them on a season-long loan from Aston Villa in July 2025, but failed to settle and was recalled by his parent club in January, having only made nine appearances for them, and spent the second half of the season back at Stockport County in League One instead.

But Lewis Dobbin is a more experienced player than Barry was when he arrived at Bramall Lane last year. He made 15 Premier League appearances for Everton and had a successful season on loan with Derby County while he was there, before moving to Aston Villa in the summer of 2023 for a fee that was reported to be in the region of £10 million.

Since then, he's been unable to find a way into the Villa team, but had spells on loan at West Brom and at Norwich City before heading to Deepdale last summer. And Dobbin has impressed at PNE this season, with nine goals and eight assists in 38 league appearances for them, mainly from a supporting striker role as opposed to out wide.

After the disastrous summer that Sheffield United had last year, when an extremely rash decision ended up costing them this season, it's clear that there remains work to be done in the transfer market this summer for them to be competitive next time around.

Lewis Dobbin has been a solid performer in the Championship, and could prove to be a strong addition as they seek to improve in 2026-27, if a deal could be struck with Aston Villa.