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Sheffield United blasted as ‘prehistoric’ by Australian coach
GRAHAM ARNOLD, an A-League winning coach in Australia, claims he has turned down an approach from Sheffield United, calling the League One club “prehistoric”.
The 49-year-old former Australia boss, who won the A-League with the Central Coast Mariners last season, claims that the Blades had interviewed him for their vacant position.
But, after a video call which included Blades director and former manager Dave Bassett, Arnold said he had no hesitation in turning the job down.
He said: “In all honesty, I didn’t have to think too long or too hard about it. It just wasn’t for me.
“Forget that the financial offer in itself was quite poor, I would have been taking three steps backwards in my development as a professional coach if I had gone.
“Being one of the bigger lower league clubs, I was expecting a lot more in terms of how they wanted to develop on the field.
“But they just didn’t seem interested when I was talking about playing a short passing game and taking the football to another level. It was about smashing the ball long and set-pieces – it was prehistoric stuff.”
The Yorkshire club, who were play-off semi-final losers to Yeovil, sacked Danny Wilson with five games of last season to go and have since been searching for a full-time replacement.