Sheffield United 2 Walsall 0: Blades keep their hopes alive with fine victory

Sheffield United want a '˜magnificent seven' ending to what has been a frustrating season in League One.

After the Blades lost to Southend United last week, it left them nine points adrift of the play-off spots.

That seemed to kill of United’s promotion hopes for another season, but Blades’ assistant manager Andy Crosby said they had not given up hope and manager Nigel Adkins challenged them to win their remaining seven games.

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They chalked the first three points off after goals from Chris Basham and Billy Sharp beat promotion-chasing Walsall.

“After Southend, we were written off by many, but we spoke about winning the next seven games and seeing where that took us; we have made a good start,” said Crosby.

“We performed really well and deservedly won the game. The fans demand effort first and foremost and we won the majority of our man-for-man duels. We applied pressure on Walsall and that created an atmosphere. Scoring first always helps, so to get two in front by half-time gave us a massive confidence lift. Both goals were excellent for differing reasons.

“The first one came from a brave header from Chris (Basham) at the back post from a terrific ball in from Matt (Done) and the second was an excellent finish from Billy (Sharp) after Bash went from scorer to provider. Both with and without the ball we dominated the game for 75 minutes or more and that’s really pleasing.”

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Sheffield United: Long,Baptiste (McGahey 57),Edgar,McEveley, Coutts, Basham, Hammond, Flynn, Done (Woolford 88), Adams (Calvert-Lewin 90), Sharp. Unused substitutes: Howard, Reed, Whiteman, Kelly.

Walsall: Etheridge, Downing, Pennington, Taylor (Forde 74), Demetriou, Flanagan (Hiwula 46), Chambers, Mantom (Lalkovic 75), Henry, Sawyers, Bradshaw. Unused substitutes: MacGillivray, Preston, Kieron Morris, Kinsella.

Referee: L Swabey (Devon).