‘I didn’t want to go in for the next three days after we got beaten 8-0 by Newcastle, I just wanted to hide under my bed’ James McAtee opens up on his Sheffield United loan spells

Graduating from the Manchester City youth team to Pep Guardiola’s senior squad is no easy feat.

Even a prodigious talent such as Cole Palmer felt he was best served moving on from the club in order to get playing regular first-team football, such is the challenge of getting past a host of the planet’s best players in the pecking order.

McAtee on his Sheffield United loan experience

McAtee’s first season across the Pennines saw him play a key role in their Championship promotion-winning campaign, with goal away at Blackpool in late December, when he ran from just outside his own penalty area to score, was the perfect illustration of how he had found his feet mid-season.

“It was a rollercoaster,” he tells FourFourTwo, referring to the campaign as a whole, rather than one of Blackpool’s main tourist attractions. “The first half of the season wasn’t so good, then around Christmas time I kicked on, got back into the team and that was probably my favourite year of football so far.

“We got to the FA Cup semi-final, although we drew City, which meant I couldn’t play – that was a pain in the arse. I remember watching the draw, seeing we’d drawn City, I was gutted.

“But the highlight of the season was getting promoted – it was amazing.”

McAtee, who joined Nottingham Forest in a permanent deal in the summer, returned for a second stint in South Yorkshire the following season, but that did go to plan, as the Blades finished rock bottom of the Premier League, shipping in a record 104 goals.

“The second year was brutal, not nice at all,” he admits. “We struggled, I think we won three games.

“And when we got beat 8-0 by Newcastle, that was horrible. I didn’t want to go in for the next three days, I wanted to hide under my bed. It’s something I’d never want to go back to, but it was a lesson about trying to keep your head, trying to stay positive.

“Don’t spiral into reading the comments online, letting them get in your head. It was a tough time, but I learned a lot.”

For more than a decade, Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor. Mewis has had stints at Mirror Football and LeedsLive among others and worked at FourFourTwo throughout Euro 2024, reporting on the tournament. In addition to his journalist work, Mewis is also the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team. Now working as a digital marketing coordinator at Harrogate Town, too, Mewis counts some of his best career moments as being in the iconic Spygate press conference under Marcelo Bielsa and seeing his beloved Leeds lift the Championship trophy during lockdown.