Sheffield United 1 Brentford 0: James McAtee's goal the beautiful exception on a day of more fight than flair

With Burnley drawing 1-1 at Brighton and Hove Albion it was not enough to lift them off the bottom of the Premier League but even so there is a new manager bounce in their step.

The victory was gritty rather than a thing of beauty – Brentford are hard opponents to play beautiful football through – but in many ways that made it more satisfying. It came with the added bonus of a first clean sheet of the season.

The Blades are not laden with enough talent to simply football their way to Premier League safety, it needs to be mixed with some of the earthy qualities that went so alarmingly absent without leave at the end of Paul Heckingbottom's tenure.

And with only one save of note all afternoon for Blades golakeeper Wes Foderingham and yet another addition already to Wilder's mental little black book of refereeing wrongs against his side there was no disputing they deserved their 1-0 win, only the second of the season.

Safety remains a long way off but the home fans have caught another glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, and they could ask no more from Wilder's first week back in his favourite dugout.

As half-time approach it looked like all there would be talk about was another bad video assistant refereeing decision but thankfully McAtee produced a moment of skill out of keeping with what went before.

Just after the board had gone up to signal stoppage time, Vitaly Janelt got in the way of Ethan Pinnock's clearance and deflected it to Gustavo Hamer, who coolly spread it to McAtee, in too much space on the right corner of the area.

He took the ball out of his feet and curled in a brilliant finish to a clenched-first celebration from Wilder, remembering the feeling he had not had at his happy place for three years.

It was an elegant piece of football to light up a game much more about fight than flair.

Ironically, Frank Onyeka's 29th-minute tackle had kicked it into life.

The Brentford midfielder went into a tackle which left Vinicius Souza in agony on the floor, and was booked by Stuart Attwell.

VAR Rob Jones pored over it for an eternity even though slowed down and zoomed in, it looked completely cut and dried, Onyeka planting his studs above the Blades midfielder's ankle.

Somehow, Jones was so clear it was not a red card that he did not even bother to send Attwell over to the monitor for a peek. Social media buzzed with the usual deluded conspiracy theories, conveniently overlooking the fact it was Jones who gave the controversial penalty which brought the Blades' only previous win of the season.

Suddenly the shots started coming in, Onyeka trying to push his luck with an effort straight at Foderingham, then another one scuffed. At the other end Will Osula shot into the side netting and Hamer dragged an effort wide.

If the quality was not always there, the effort was much better from the hosts than it had been at Turf Moor seven days earlier, pressing high and vigorously from their 4-3-3 shape. Jack Robinson raced into Neal Maupay's face and threw himself in the way of a 45th-minute shot, deflecting it wide for a corner.

At the stage it was his side's best moment, but McAtee comfortably outdid it a minute later.

No doubt helped by it, the hosts came out much more front-footed for the second half, Anel Ahmedhodzic missing a good chance from a Hamer free-kick.

Bringing on a scuffler of a midfielder, Anis Slimane, as a left-winger was a negative move on paper but almost instantly he was forcing a rare save from Mark Flekken, and another from distance four minutes later.

His shot into the side netting after 82 minutes was about as wild as the weather.

Inevitably, though, the bottom-placed team became more cautious, Max Lowe's introduction changing the formation to 3-5-1-1 after a short spell of pressure which had Wilder dancing around his technical area urging his players into the tackles.

The best Brentford had to show for it was Yoane Wissa's header wide. The same player forced Foderingham's first decent save of the game with an 80th-minute volley but both men caught it nicely.

Cameron Archer, moved off the wing to lead the line in the changes, responded almost immediately by carrying to ball into striking range and producing a shot Flekken dealt well with. He had another in the 86th that bounced just wide. It is fast becoming a trademark.

McAtee ran himself into what looked like cramp – though in fairness, that happens a lot – to grant Sydie Peck a debut as a substitute, Ahmedhodzic threw himself of Ben Mee's effort at a corner and a group of Blades chest-bumped each other in the corner like rutting rhinos celebrating the tracking back in search of that elusive clean sheet. Wilder demanded the fans play their part too, and they were happy to.

He knows what they want to watch, and he made sure his players provided it.

No wonder they chanted "Chrissy Wilder, he's one of our own" so proudly at the final whistle.

Sheffield United: Foderingham; Bogle, Ahmedhodzic, Robinson, Trusty; Hamer, Souza, Brooks (Lowe 72); McAtee (Peck 81), Osula (Slimane 54), Archer.

Unused substitutes: Davies, Traore, Thomas, One, Larouci, Seriki.

Brentford: Flekken; Ghoddos, Pinnock, Mee, Janelt; Onyeka (Yarmoliuk HT), Norgaard, Baptiste (Damsgaard 66); Wissa, Maupay, Lewis-Potter (Olakigbe 66).

Unused substitutes: Goode, M Jorgensen, Strakosha, Peart-Harris, Roerslev, Adedokun.

Referee: S Attwell (Nuneaton).