DELIGHTED Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder hailed the 'excellent' all-round performance of hat-trick hero Sydie Peck - and said that he will hopefully be a future full-time Blades captain one day following a milestone night in his burgeoning career at Preston.

The gifted midfielder notched the first treble of his career - with the goals all arriving in a first-half spell inside 20 minutes - on a night when United registered back-to-back league wins for the first time since April in a 3-2 win at Championship cellar dwellers North End.

The visitors did it the hard way after trailing inside two minutes following Leo Leroy's strike.

Peck then came to the party with a cross-shot drawing the Blades level on 27 minutes. Ten minutes later, he scored a brilliant curler before tapping home just before the interval.

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder. (Image: Simon Bellis / Sportimage)

placeholder image — Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder. (Image: Simon Bellis / Sportimage)

Substitute Callum Lang pulled one back in the final quarter but United held out for their fourth win in their past six matches. Wilder's side are up to ninth in the Championship table.

On his match-winner, Wilder said: "His all-round performance was excellent. I'm talking about playing him higher and getting in the box and making forward runs.

"He's done it right the way through his young career, scored goals and he needs to score more. I'm just thinking about it and I spoke to him about Leicester last season when he got a couple. We had a good afternoon at the King Power and he's got that in his locker.

"I think he's a touch disappointed because he's had a couple more opportunities in the second half and we did. We got into some great positions. (Tahith) Chong should score, Sydie possibly should score (again).

Sydie Peck netted a first-half hat-trick for Sheffield United at Deepdale. Picture: Simon Bellis / Sportimage

"I'm not going to be greedy and say every opportunity that we have we should score from, but we created enough to take the game away from the opposition.

"But Sydie will get all the headlines and deservedly so. He'll one day hopefully captain this football club.

"It was too early, in my opinion, when he was doing it before I came back, I needed to take that responsibility off of him and make sure he got his head down and was a good footballer. He was a good footballer tonight.

"Off the pitch, (you see) his leadership skills in training, he wants to win and you can see that. It was there in abundance and I'm all over that.

"First and foremost, you've got to win the game of football, but the emotion side of it, he plays his football emotionally as well as intelligently and it's a good night for him, a great night for him."

On his side’s overall display, Wilder, whose side visit Charlton this weekend, continued: "Apart from the first two minutes and maybe the last five minutes, I thought my team was outstanding. We gave them an obvious lift and a leg up with the start.

"We have to do better in that sort of situation. They're coming off the back of a disappointing performance and result on Saturday, so we gave them a big lift. I thought our play tonight was good.

"We created some good opportunities and controlled the game (after). We were just a bit disappointed just after half-time that really never took the game away from the opposition. It's a poor goal late on for us to concede."