Billy Sharp tells Sheffield United cutting out mistakes is key to continuing revival

BIG GOALS: Sheffield United have not lost in a game Billy Sharp has scored in this season

The Blades have lost 13 matches by the odd goal this season, but their FA Cup win over Bristol City – again by the odd goal, Sharp's penalty – was their sixth in nine games.

November's Premier League visit of West Ham United was a 1-0 defeat but captain Sharp is hopeful they can turn that around in Monday's 6pm reverse fixture.

And although he says “the shackles are off”, Sharp still stresses the need for his team to take care in their play.

“That's six wins in nine so we're winning more games than we're losing at the minute, which we weren't doing at the start of the season,” said the centre-forward, whose five goals this season have come in four one-goal wins and a draw.

“A good bonus on Wednesday was the clean sheet because we know if we keep clean sheets we can score goals. We need to keep doing that.

“Yeah, we need to win a lot of games but it was nice to win in midweek and it's good for Monday away at West Ham.

“We didn't make any mistakes like we did against Chelsea, where if we hadn't made any mistakes we'd have got something out of the game.

“We need to cut out individual and collective mistakes because we've made a lot of them this season and we didn't make many last season. That's the small margins.

“We've not lost games by two or three goals, we've always been in games, it's just about getting that first goal which is so important in the Premier League. It gives you something to hold onto and build on. That's something we need to do on Monday.”

The clean sheet against the Robins was only Sheffield United's second of the season, the other coming in their maiden Premier League victory, over Newcastle United.

Nevertheless, there is a bit of verve back that was missing in their pre-new year play, and that is making a fight of an extremely unlikely battle against relegation.

“We need to take the shackles off now and just go for it,” said Sharp, whose team saw the gap to safety extended to 14 points at the weekend. “Everybody's written us off now so we need to try and build momentum and belief and just go for it.”

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