Sharp is in his third spell at Bramall Lane, having made his professional debut for his home-town club as an 18 year-old substitute in November 2004 against Watford in a Championship 1-1 draw. Sharp was soon loaned out to League Two side Rushden & Diamonds, where his nine goals in 16 appearances helped The Diamonds to 22nd and survival in the Football League. Sharp was allowed to join Scunthorpe United in the summer of 2005 who had just been promoted to League One, which is where his affiliation with the third tier began.

Sharp scored on his Scunthorpe and League One debut in August 2005 – the only goal of an away match at title favourites Nottingham Forest. Sharp scored an impressive 15 goals in his first 15 League One matches, and established a strong partnership with Irish striker Andy Keogh. Sharp ended the season with 23 League One goals, which put him joint top of the division’s scoring charts with Freddy Eastwood of champions Southend United.

Scunthorpe got off to a poor start in the 2006/07 season, taking until the sixth game to record their first win, but by November they had entered the automatic promotion spots where they weren’t to be displaced for the rest of the season. Sharp consistently scored all season, never going more than three matches in a row without a goal. This, despite losing his strike partner Keogh in a January transfer to Championship side Wolves. Scunthorpe brought in Jermaine Beckford on loan from Leeds United to replace Keogh, and despite having little Football League experience, Beckford outscored Keogh whilst also playing ten less matches than the Irishman.

Having been the highest league goalscoring player across England’s top four divisions in 2006/07 (and by a distance, no other player getting more than 23, to Sharp’s 30), Sharp found himself hot property. His boyhood club Sheffield United managed to tempt him away from giving the second tier a go with Scunthorpe, for a fee believed to be around £2m. This was a healthy profit for Scunthorpe who had paid just £100k for him two years earlier. Sheffield United had just been relegated from the Premier League and were looking to bounce back to the top flight at the first attempt. Much was expected from Sharp as he was partnered with the experienced Premier League quality of James Beattie. However, Sharp struggled with injury and the step up to the Championship. It took Sharp until March and his 20th Championship appearance for him to score his first league goal of the season. Sharp ended the campaign with four goals, as Sheffield United struggled to ninth.

2008/09 started with much promise as Sharp netted his first career hat-trick in the second game of the season, a 3-0 home win over QPR. Surprisingly, he only managed one more league goal all season and was soon out of favour. Sheffield United agonisingly missed out on promotion – three points off automatic promotion, and unexpectedly losing the play-off final to Burnley. Sharp’s poor form saw him transfer listed and it was fellow South Yorkshire side Doncaster Rovers that took him on loan for the next season, which yielded a better Championship season, with 15 goals. Doncaster made the deal permanent in the summer of 2010, and Sharp delivered another 15 Championship goals in 2010/11. Sharp had ten goals for Doncaster by January in the 2011/12 season but with the side firmly in the relegation zone, promotion pushing Southampton brought in Sharp to bolster their attack, having been impressed by Sharp’s one-in-two Championship ratio for Doncaster.

Sharp scored on his full debut for Southampton, and partnered with fellow former League One top scorer Rickie Lambert, they completed the task of returning The Saints to the Premier League after seven years away. Sharp scored the opening goal in a 4-0 win over Coventry on the last day of the season to secure promotion. It looked like Sharp would get a chance in the Premier League, but he was only given 20 minutes of Premier League football from the bench in the first two matches of the season, before being allowed to return to the Championship on loan with Nottingham Forest. Sharp managed 10 goals in the 2012/13 season for Forest, but at a ratio of one in four, he then spent the next two seasons in the Championship scoring at a similar rate, or worse, for Reading and Doncaster in loan spells, and then for Leeds United who signed him permanently for the 2014/15.

Having only scored five in 33 for Leeds, he was allowed to drop back into League One, nine years after exiting it as the tier’s best striker. Sheffield United had fallen into decline since Sharp’s second departure, and had spent four seasons in League One failing in the play-offs before they re-signed Sharp for a second time in the summer of 2015. Sharp was quicker off the mark for The Blades this time, scoring in the fourth game of the season. However, despite scoring 21 league goals, his highest since his Scunthorpe days, Sheffield United stumbled to mid-table. This takes us to the current season, where the similarities between Sharp’s successful Scunthorpe season ten years earlier are uncanny.