Collins certain Blades will cope with pressure and loss of Evans

According to Blades defender Neill Collins, the answer is ‘yes’. On the evidence of last weekend’s defeat at Milton Keynes Dons, however, the answer may be ‘no’.

Evans, who is planning an appeal against his five-year prison sentence for rape, scored 35 goals for the Blades this season and found the net in each of his last seven games.

His removal from the spotlight with only three games of the season to go, however, dealt an immediate blow to the bid for automatic promotion.

Tonight, the Blades host play-off chasing Stevenage in a game that could still turn out to be a promotion party – depending on Sheffield Wednesday’s afternoon result at Brentford.

If the Owls lose, the Blades can seal promotion with a victory. If the Owls draw and the Blades win, it will also be over, barring a strange set of results on the final day, because of the goal difference.

Manager Danny Wilson needs to find a way of replacing Evans’s goals but his attacking options suffered another hit this week when on-loan Will Hoskins returned to Brighton and Hove Albion for groin surgery.

If Richard Cresswell fails to recover from a shoulder injury, it will be down to Chris Porter, James Beattie, and Michael O’Halloran – who are all without goals in the last three months.

Collins may do the majority of his work at the opposite end of the field but even he has found the net twice since January.

But the defender, who is seeking a second promotion from League One in the last three years after going up with Leeds United in 2010, insists there is no need to panic.

Significantly, he also pointed to the first six games of the season when the Blades –- without the injured Evans – picked up an impressive 16 points out of a possible 18.

“We started the season off pretty well without Ched. If we were top two then, I don’t see any reason why we can’t cope now,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “Ched has scored the most goals but we don’t need to change the way we play as a team. We will pass the ball, try to move it quickly, and we will still create chances.”

Emotions are still raw when it comes to the events surrounding Evans’s departure and Collins opts not to talk in any length about the affect it may have had on the players.

“That’s just for the people in the changing room to know – and it has to be kept there, to be honest,” he says.

In terms of mental strength, Collins hopes the Blades will come through all the challenges they currently face.

“Our manager is very level-headed which has a big impact on the players,” he said.

“We don’t get too carried away or too down. A lot of things have happened for the manager throughout the season that have not been the easiest to deal with – but we are lucky we have had his experience and (assistant-manager) Frank Barlow’s to steady the ship.

“The mood has been good this week,” he stressed. “Obviously, we were disappointed with the performance, especially in the first half against Milton Keynes Dons, because we had not played like that in a while. But we have moved on. We were unbeaten in nine prior to that game so you can’t beat yourself up about it.

“If we’d been offered this at the start of the season, we would have accepted it,” he said. “We are at the stage now where we know what we need to do regardless of anyone else. Two wins and we are promoted.”

Both Collins and Blades captain Michael Doyle were in the Leeds side that clinched promotion with a 2-1 home victory against Bristol Rovers in April, 2010.

Today’s game, which has been moved to 5.20pm for live television coverage, and will be watched by around 30,000 at Bramall Lane, has the potential to be equally significant.

“It will be quite similar in some ways to the situation we had at Leeds United,” said Collins. “We had to win the last game of the season against Bristol Rovers to go up. The atmosphere was phenomenal and I’m sure it will be the same here on Saturday.”

Comparing his current side with the Leeds side of two years ago, he says: “Leeds had a lot of attacking options – Max Gradel, Lucianno Becchio, Beckford, Snodgrass, Howson. We are more of a balanced team in terms of well-organised and we have had a settled eleven.

“We don’t maybe have those names to come off the bench and change the game but I think we have two or three more points than Leeds had that season. I don’t know if that means anything.

“I will try and pass on that experience but, at the end of the day, it’s all about performances. You try to lead by example in the way you play but the boys have been putting in the performances all season, so it is now a case of ‘same again’ but doing it in a more high pressure atmosphere.

“There are no magic words to say,” he added. “It’s just ‘go out and do the same and enjoy it’. It’s certainly better than where we were at this time last season.”