{"id":471753,"date":"2019-07-03T10:08:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T14:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=471753"},"modified":"2019-07-03T10:10:12","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T14:10:12","slug":"sheffield-united-luke-freeman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/07\/03\/sheffield-united-luke-freeman\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheffield United Make Luke Freeman Their First Summer Signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/clubs\/sheffield-united-club-news-analysis-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sheffield United<\/a> have confirmed the signing of Queens Park Rangers midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/636b64cd\/Luke-Freeman\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Freeman<\/a> for a club-record undisclosed fee. The 27-year-old has signed a three-year contract, meaning he will stay at Bramall Lane until 2022.<\/p>\n<h1>Luke Freeman Signs For Sheffield United<\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en-gb\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Welcome to the Blades Luke ?\u270d\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SUFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SUFC<\/a> ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8xxaqSTSKR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8xxaqSTSKR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sheffield United (@SUFC_tweets) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SUFC_tweets\/status\/1146418360680353792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">3 July 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Last Season<\/h2>\n<p>Luke Freeman was an integral figure in what was a dismal 2018\/19 season for QPR. He scored eight goals and registered six assists in all competitions as QPR finished 19th in the Championship.<\/p>\n<p>However, he was a influential player in QPR&#8217;s attack overall last season. As well as contributing with goals and assists, he also made on average <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoscored.com\/Players\/33290\/Show\/Luke-Freeman\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two key passes<\/a> per game. Furthermore, he also had 1.6 shot per game and 1.6 shots per game.<\/p>\n<p>His impressive performances earned him QPR Supporters&#8217; Player of the Year.<\/p>\n<h2>How Will Luke Freeman Fit in at Sheffield United?<\/h2>\n<p>Speaking to Sky Sports, Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder hinted that Luke Freeman may play a key role for the club. He said: &#8220;He is someone we have tracked for the last 12 months and it&#8217;s a deal we tried to do last year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Freeman outperformed Sheffield United&#8217;s current cohort of attacking midfielders last season. As a result, he will likely become a first-team player upon arrival at Bramall Lane.<\/p>\n<h2>First of Many For Sheffield United?<\/h2>\n<p>When speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/watch\/video\/11755000\/wilder-hopeful-on-freeman-deal\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sky Sports<\/a>, Chris Wilder said: &#8220;We&#8217;re close to getting a few more in too, which will calm our supporters down a bit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Blades have been linked with several players so far. According to Shane Ireland of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfer-news\/charlie-austin-aston-villa-transfer-16510777\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Birmingham Live<\/a>, they are one of a number of clubs looking at <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/clubs\/sheffield-united-club-news-analysis-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Southampton<\/a> striker<a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/8d228291\/Charlie-Austin\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Charlie Austin<\/a>. The 29-year-old struggled last season, scoring just two goals.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Dominic Booth of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfer-news\/man-utd-dean-henderson-transfer-16487838\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Manchester Evening News<\/a> believes they are looking to re-sign <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/e5a76dfe\/Dean-Henderson\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dean Henderson<\/a> on-loan for another season. The goalkeeper played a key part in Sheffield United&#8217;s promotion, featuring in all 46 Championship games.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <a id=\"rJ_VDonyRcxi0bznj7fFWw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1132384773\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'rJ_VDonyRcxi0bznj7fFWw',sig:'HTkU2L7TD6CGg5KGgsuwTolQoN_QGGvYGNOwZ175e-c=',w:'594px',h:'393px',items:'1132384773',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sheffield United have confirmed the signing of Queens Park Rangers midfielder Luke Freeman for a club-record undisclosed fee. The 27-year-old has signed a three-year contract, meaning he will stay at Bramall Lane until 2022. Luke Freeman Signs For Sheffield United &nbsp; Welcome to the Blades Luke ?\u270d\ufe0f#SUFC ? pic.twitter.com\/8xxaqSTSKR \u2014 Sheffield United (@SUFC_tweets) 3 July [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2795,"featured_media":472399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,3,3839,28],"tags":[3907,40,279,771,136],"class_list":["post-471753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-premier-league","category-sheffield-united","category-transfers","tag-luke-freeman","tag-premier-league","tag-qpr","tag-sheffield-united","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}