Sheffield United 2 Sheffield Wednesday 1: Kalvin Phillips' madness turns one-sided affair into genuine contest
For 45 minutes, it was surely one of the most embarrassingly one-sided halves the Steel City derby has ever seen, only for Sheffield United's Kalvin Phillips to inexplicably make a game of it.
Wednesday's relegation from the Championship was officially signed off byan 11th straight defeat, but at least they went down fighting.
Whilst the Owls could take a little pride from the way they lost; for the Blades, desperately trying to stay in the promotion race, it just had to be a win of any sort. How uncomfortable it became was entirely of their own making, but they did.
Nobody could have seen anything else coming as the players came off at half-time, the Owls 2-0 down having been utterly outplayed.
It was bad enough that their financial hell forced Wednesday to bring a water pistol to a gun fight, but they spilt the contents all over the floor before a shot was even fired.
All the Blades needed to do in the second period was keep their heads, but Phillips – on his first Bramall Lane start in red-and-white – lost his and left his team-mates mopping their brows on a 2-1 win.
The Owls set the first-half tone with their very first touch, Svante Ingelsson wellying the ball aimlessly into Blades territory, just as when he next got the ball. In the 25th minute he was booked for smashing into Callum O'Hare – brainless aggression, not the "toughness" his manager Henrik Pedersen had called for.
As poor as the visitors were, the hosts had the steel required.
They got the message, taking just 75 seconds to go in front.
Joel Ndala had done well not to give the ball away in the left-back position in the face of harassment from Andre Brooks and Femi Seriki, but eventually cleared not over the nearby touchline but straight to Gustavo Hamer.
With Liam Palmer drawn to the him, Hamer passed and Patrick Bamford ran to where the Owls captain ought to have been. 1-0.
It was even quicker than the goal Keith Thomas scored for Wednesday 90 seconds into the September 1950 Bramall Lane derby.
In the 18th minute O'Hare ran onto a Seriki pass and hit a post but soon it was 2-0, the Blades ripping another a hole down the Owls' right. Harrison Burrows ran off Charlie McNeill and unleashed a ferocious outside-of-the-boot shot which flashed past Seny Dieng, the Owls’ emergency goalkeeper on debut.
Handbags after half an hour as Jamal Lowe slunk away and let the rest argue over his tackle on Hamer, showed the Owls cared, but Tayo Adramola being unable to put a throw-in onto the field highlighted how dreadful they were.
In the first half, they gave the ball away more often than they retained it, the Blades' passing accuracy 38 per cent higher from more than three times as many passes.
But Phillips stupidly gifted them a way back in.
Just four minutes after the restart he was shown a straight red card for a wild tackle on Ingelsson, leaving his studs in for good measure.
Within four minutes the Wednesday supporters were signing "We've scored a goal!"
Gabriel Otegbayo gamboled past O'Hare, Bamford and Brooks like a lorry with faulty brakes hurtling downhill. When he found Tayo Aderamola the cross cleared everyone but McNeill, who checked back and netted with a precise finish.
Wilder withdrew his chief creator, Hamer, to batten down the hatches.
Wednesday's fight threatened to get out of hand, Palmer somehow escaping a booking for a blatant block on Bamford, but Liam Cooper and McNeill cautioned for fouls on O'Hare in the following minutes.
Suddenly it was the Blades kicking the ball aimlessly into opposition territory. A spell of treatment for Adaramola became an impromptu time-out, at the end of which Pedersen brought striker Ike Ugbo on for centre-back Cooper.
For all the tension inside Bramall Lane, the Owls never looked like scoring again. When the ball was worked to McNeill in a good shooting position, he shot wide.
Otegbayo's 90th-minute second yellow card, for wrestling Tyrese Campbell, ended the suspense.
Campbell and Peck should have scored after being played through in stoppage time but Dieng saved.
It was a frenetic, crazy end to the game – just like derbies are supposed to be. It continued after the final whistle with one last row between Sydie Peck and Ingelsson.
The outcome was the one everyone expected but at least from a Wednesday perspective, the journey did not take the direct route that had looked on the cards.
Sheffield United: Cooper; Seriki (Hjelde 83), Tanganga, Bindon, Burrows; Peck, Phillips; Brooks (Hoever 63), O’Hare (Soumare 73), Hamer (Arblaster 52); Bamford (Campbell 63). Unused substitutes: A Davies, Cannon, Chong, McGuiness.
Sheffield Wednesday: Dieng; Palmer, Otegbayo, Cooper (Ugbo 79), Adaramola (Fusire 87); McNeill (McGhee 90+1), Heskey, Ingelsson, Ndala; Lowe, Yates (Moses 87). Unused substitutes: Emery, Grainger, Stretch, Johnson, Thornton.
Referee: J Smith (Lincolnshire).