Sheffield United must replicate effort shown against Manchester City in huge game with West Brom

To look at the league table, Sheffield United’s trip to Manchester City did them no good. The reality was rather different.
George Baldock of Sheffield Utd takes on Aymeric Laporte (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)George Baldock of Sheffield Utd takes on Aymeric Laporte (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
George Baldock of Sheffield Utd takes on Aymeric Laporte (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)

Beating a Manchester City side who had won their last 11 matches – actual positive consistency in a season where it has proved almost impossible – on their own patch was always going to be a tall order. A point looked optimistic.

Even so, Chris Wilder’s side had to try, and ensure if their opponents made it impossible, they at least headed back across the Pennines with the feelgood factor of 2021 preserved. Tomorrow’s game at home to down-at-heel West Bromwich Albion is massive, and the Blades could not go into it licking wounds from a severe beating.

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In that sense at least, it was job done – or rather part one of the job. Now they must finish it off by doing what they should have at the Hawthorns and put the Baggies away.

Aaron Ramsdale of Sheffield Utd made three important saves against Manchester City (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)Aaron Ramsdale of Sheffield Utd made three important saves against Manchester City (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
Aaron Ramsdale of Sheffield Utd made three important saves against Manchester City (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)

Switching off for a second on Saturday saw the Blades fall behind early, and John Fleck’s inability to hit the target at the death cost them a point. These are the fine margins they have been on the wrong side of all season. In between came a performance of spirit, determination, organisation and increasing confidence.

In May we might well reflect they left it too late, but they have given themselves a fighting chance as they battle relegation.

Having stood off Gabriel Jesus in only the ninth minute, allowing him time to retrieve the ball from under his feet after a poor first touch from Ferran Torres’s brilliant wingplay, a team resigned to their fate would have opened the floodgates. Very rarely have we seen that from Wilder’s men.

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It took three outstanding Aaron Ramsdale saves to prevent further damage, but only three. United were like a boxer pinned against the ropes ducking and weaving out of the way of every swing. Ilkay Gundogan, perhaps the Premier League’s most in-form player, and Phil Foden, English football’s great white hope, were scarcely noticed.

Pep Guardiola manager of Manchester City talks to Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield United at the final whistle (Picture: Darren Staples/Sportimage)Pep Guardiola manager of Manchester City talks to Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield United at the final whistle (Picture: Darren Staples/Sportimage)
Pep Guardiola manager of Manchester City talks to Chris Wilder manager of Sheffield United at the final whistle (Picture: Darren Staples/Sportimage)

City manager Pep Guardiola, sounding like a fully paid-up member of the Wilder fanclub so oversubscribed last season, seemed bemused and impressed.

“I woke up, I went out of my building and I saw the wind and felt it was freezing and I said it would be the toughest game to play this season,” he said.

“When you see Sheffield United are bottom of the league you realise why the Premier League is the toughest league in the world.

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“We struggle (against them) every season. We won 2-0 at home last season when in the first half they were better, 0-1 there, 0-1 in this game. The physicality and the organisation of Chris’s team is outstanding. It was so difficult.”

Jesus’s goal should have started a landslide but after it, not much happened. City dominated the ball but a Jesus shot wide under excellent Chris Basham pressure, a poor Torres header from Oleksandr Zinchenko’s cross, and Ramsdale’s saves – flying right to deny the left-back, tipping Aymeric Laporte’s header from the corner over and a stoppage-time save from Jesus – were thin gruel.

“I give credit to our opponents,” said Guardiola.

The Blades had skill and organisation but above all, the backbone to not succumb to a fate which has long looked inevitable.

“It’s been a positive changing room right the way through,” argued Wilder. “If we’d been beaten (by) fours and fives or even twos and threes each week it might have been different.

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“There was no downside to winning a game of football (at Bristol Rovers) or that first league game (at Newcastle). It should have been done a lot earlier but I thought the performance at Tottenham was okay and then we get a win against Plymouth, a fabulous win at Old Trafford and a performance at Manchester City, they’re small wins but it is game on for us.

“You’ve got to have balls to play in this division. They (Manchester City) are good at everything – if you whack it long they brought in Laporte and Fernandinho so they can deal with you going direct, they can press you well, they can sit off you, they’re world-class players and a world-class manager so you have to at times have the bravery to try and play as well. We did it more in the second half and gave ourselves more of an opportunity getting up the pitch and having a bit more possession and trying to stay in the game as well to allow us to get something out of it at the end.

“We had to build on the midweek win (at Manchester United) and it was important we got something – ideally a result but something a bit more, and we did.

“The feeling in that changing room is possibly the best it has been all season. Everybody’s looking to the next 17 games.”

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With 12 minutes left, Wilder went for broke and it almost paid.

David McGoldrick had come on, and slipped into midfield in a 4-1-3-2 when Billy Sharp and Oli McBurnie joined him.

Sharp chested John Egan’s long ball into Fleck’s path after 87 minutes, only for the midfielder to shoot narrowly wide.

It meant the Blades were unable to add to their eight-point tally, but they did not head home with nothing.

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