Chris Wilder wants Sheffield United to take inspiration from Manchester United win

The Red Devils started the week top of the Premier League and in good form, the Blades bottom and written off by many in their fight to stay in the division, but the heavily-depleted visitors showed great character to shrug off an equaliser scored by their former centre-back Harry Maguire and win the game through Oliver Burke's first top-flight goal.

Now they face an even greater test against a Manchester City side who have won their last 11 matches and have replaced their city rivals at the top of the table.

“There's been a lot of fight in the boys in terms of enthusiasm, being competitive and making those games as close as we possibly can against world-class players on the whole but to get a big result like that doesn't do you any harm and hopefully they can use that as an inspiration to go to the league leaders,” said manager Wilder.

“It was a fabulous result for us. We needed a few things to go for us and it will be the same on Saturday for us to get a result. We've got to be on top of our game, take those tiny moments if we get them and out of possession we've got to be incredibly tight and good to stop a team that's bang in form from taking the game away from us.”

Adding to Wednesday's achievement was the fact the Blades were without nine players through injury and suspension. The trip to Old Trafford was one of a number of games in 2021 where they have been unable to name a full compliment of substitutes, but Wilder was giving nothing away with regards to the fitness situation heading to Eastlands.

“There's some boys having late fitness tests,” he revealed.

“We were disappointed to lose Enda Stevens and a couple of the others pretty late on.

“We'll try to do that (fill the bench) and that's my decision in conjunction with the medical department. It's not always straight-forward because we can't take a last-game-of-the-season gamble approach with 18 games to go. We have to look at that and come to sensible decisions regarding who we can involve.”

Asked how long wing-back Stevens – whose stand-in Kean Bryan opened the scoring on Wednesday – might be out, Wilder simply said: “Hopefully not a great amount of time. We're assessing that.

“I'm going to straight-bat it regarding the injuries. I'm not going to be an open book and tell you when they're all coming coming back, I'm keeping my cards close to my chest.

“But obviously we're working extremely hard with the players and their mindset is they want to be back and be part of it.”

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