Gustavo Hamer: Who is Sheffield United's new £15 million signing? | OneFootball

Highlights

Coventry City were a penalty shootout away from securing a return to England’s top-flight for the first time since 2001 after reaching the 2022-23 Championship play-offs. Unfortunately, a missed spot kick would see Luton take the plaudits in the well-renowned, richest game in football with the Sky Blues subjected to another season of second-tier footie.

Playing on that fateful day in May was Gustavo Hamer. The talented Coventry City player had already been named in the Championship Team of the Season, and it was his well-taken equaliser on the hour mark that sent the West Midlands end at Wembley into raptures. Sadly, his efforts to galvanise his side in the second half fell flat, with the player trudging off when the clock struck the 80th minute.

While Hamer’s goal wasn’t enough to fire Coventry back to the promised land, his contributions during the 2022-23 campaign certainly didn’t go unnoticed and were enough to secure him a move to Premier League returnees, Sheffield United.

With an exciting, albeit arduous Premier League season awaiting him with the Blades, Hamer has already endeared himself to his new followers with a stunning strike on his debut away at Nottingham Forest, beginning where he left off; with another equaliser.

To many a Premier League fan not well-acquainted with Championship affairs, Bramall Lane’s new star man will be an unknown commodity, so who exactly is Gustavo Hamer?

All statistics included in this article are according to Transfermarkt unless stated otherwise.

Who is Gustavo Hamer?

Despite the South American ring to his name, Gustavo Martin Emilio Hamer was brought up in the Netherlands, and has represented the Dutch at international level featuring for the country’s under-18s and under-20s. Originally heralding from Brazil, from the municipality of Itajaí, the country's second-largest port, Hamer’s start to life was far from plain sailing. Due to his parents’ inability to raise him, Hamer and his older brother, a 2-year-old Gus was placed into a care home. Luckily, the soon-to-be footballing hero wasn’t there for long before being adopted by a Dutch family and taken over to start a new life in The Hague.

Hamer would subsequently settle into life in Holland with his new adoptive family. Displaying an ardour for the sporting art of football at a young age, the diminutive midfielder would be picked up by Dutch giants, Feyenoord at the age of 13. Rising through the ranks at De club aan de Maas, Hamer would go on to turn out for the club on just two occasions before heading off on loan to Dutch second-tier side, FC Dordrecht in 2017.

Receiving his professional education in Dordrecht, the midfield man returned to his parent club, but was surplus to requirements and consequently sealed a permanent move to fellow Eredivisie side, PEC Zwolle in 2018. Spending two years in central Holland, Hamer’s performances were such that he attracted the admiration of Coventry boss Mark Robbins, whose £1.5 million bid was accepted with the player moving over to England in 2020.

During Hamer’s three-year spell sporting the Sky Blue colours, the Brazilian-born Netherlands-bred would go on to make 132 appearances for The Singers, registering a sublime 43 G/A contributions, averaging a goal involvement every three games. With every passing season, Hamer became increasingly important to Coventry, and last term, he along with goalscoring talisman Viktor Gyokeres spearheaded the club’s play-off charge with their intricate link-up and dazzling on-field chemistry.

How much does Gustavo Hamer earn?

Signing for Paul Heckingbottom’s Blades during the 2023 summer transfer window for a reported fee of £15 million on a four-year deal, the Dutchman goes down as the fifth most expensive transfer in the club’s history.

According to Capology, Hamer was earning a total of £6,538 a week while at Coventry, taking his annual earnings up to £340,000. While the figures for his current deal at Sheffield United are yet to be publicly verified, the hefty sum paid for the midfielder in addition to his capacity as a Sander Berge replacement, who was the highest-earner at the club prior to his departure, pocketing £32,692 a week and £1.7 million a year, points towards Hamer being towards the upper echelons of the pay bracket in Yorkshire.

Gustavo Hamer's Championship statistics

What can Sheffield United fans expect from Gustavo Hamer?

The 5’7 midfielder is by no means a physical specimen operating in midfield, but whatever he lacks in height he makes up for in free-flowing flair. The central midfielder may have been uprooted from Brazil at an early age, however, the fact of the matter is you can take the boy out of Brazil, but you can’t take Brazil out of the boy. His technical ability and masterful capacity to employ both feet to equal effect is a skill within itself.

Exceptionally gifted at picking the ball up in deep positions while on the half-turn and managing to locate pockets of space even against the tightest-knit defences, Hamer is the embodiment of a deep-lying playmaker who can also be just as effective when getting forward.

Ranking fifth in WhoScored’s ratings for best Championship players last term, the Dutchman’s stats are simply faultless. Recording 1.8 key passes a game and third in the entire league for assists with 10, Hamer’s offensive credentials and ability to break the lines with relative ease are mightily impressive. The forward-thinking creator, who was dubbed by Leicester boss, Enzo Maresca as "probably the best player in the Championship”, has variation on his side too, and a serious wealth of dynamism.

The offensively-minded midfielder is also defensively astute. Tallying the sixth most tackles in the Championship last season, averaging 2.6 a game, his fearless tenacity means he isn’t afraid to get stuck in and put in the hard yards for his side while under pressure.

Ultimately, if Hamer’s displays from last season can be translated as well in the Premier League, £15 million for a man entering his prime years is quite the steal, and this could be a move that works out well for both club and player, with Hamer likely having his eyes set on a call-up to next year’s European Championships with Holland.