Sheffield United took a gamble on prolific Scottish Championship striker - Blades didn't get what Charlton & AFC Wimbledon did | OneFootball

When Sheffield United signed Lyle Taylor, they were taking a bit of a gamble. It didn't work out, and the striker only found his form in London.

When Sheffield United signed Lyle Taylor from Falkirk in 2013, they were taking a bit of a gamble. It didn't work out for them, but did for the other clubs he'd played for once he returned to his home city.

When Taylor signed for Sheffield United in July 2013, the striker was already on his third bite of the EFL cherry. He'd started his career at Millwall but failed to break into the first team, and a couple of years at Bournemouth had only led to loans to non-league clubs and further frustration.

But a transfer to Falkirk in 2012 seemed to demonstrate his potential. He scored 24 league goals in 34 appearances for the Bairns in the 2012-13 season, and this alerted English clubs to his possible availability. At the end of the 2012-13 season he seemed likely to join Rotherham United, only to fail to agree personal terms with them.

Only just over a week after that, Sheffield United stepped in. The Blades were in League One by this time and had just been beaten in the play-offs by Yeovil Town. And Taylor's goals looked like a potential solution. They paid an undisclosed fee to take the striker to Bramall Lane.

Taylor and Sheffield United didn't hit it off

But with David Weir managing the team, the Blades had an absymal start to the 2013-14 season, and by the time he was sacked after just four months, they were third from bottom in the table, having scored the least goals in the entire division. And Taylor hadn't scored any of the six that they had managed. Two days after Weir's dismissal, he scored his first two goals for the club, although these couldn't prevent a 3-2 defeat to Coventry.

Nigel Clough was the new manager, but first team opportunities remained limited. Those two goals at Coventry were the only ones he scored in the League all season, and he was loaned out to Partick Thistle for the second half of the season.

Although the Blades recovered from their bad start to finish seventh, Taylor's time with the club was coming to an end even though he still had a year to run on his contract. After just one season, he moved on to Scunthorpe United.

Taylor finally clicks once back in his home city of London

Taylor would go on to be a fearsome striker, but it didn't happen at Scunthorpe. He managed three in 18 games for them - and had another loan spell at Partick - before going to AFC Wimbledon in 2015.

Once back in London, it clicked. By the end of his first season he'd scored 23 League goals, including the first in Wimbledon's League Two play-off final win against Plymouth. The London-born striker then went on to Charlton Athletic from there, scoring a goal every other game before moving on to Nottingham Forest. He's still playing now; he scored 10 League goals for Colchester United throughout the 2024/25 season.

And Sheffield United weren't immediately that much better off without him. It took them until 2017 to get back into the Championship, and they were a Premier League club again by the start of the 2020s. They may well look back and wonder whether they'd have got there sooner, had Lyle Taylor delivered for them what he ended up delivering for AFC Wimbledon and Charlton Athletic.