Sheffield United hero Sharp ready to run Iron gauntlet

The Blades striker stepped off the bench on Sunday to score the goal that sunk Coventry and earned Nigel Adkins’s side a first win in seven league games.

As he prepares to return to the club where he made his name nearly a decade ago, Sharp is hoping that his winning contribution will have earned him a recall to the starting XI.

If so, the 29-year-old wants the Scunthorpe faithful to give him the worst reception they can.

“Hopefully, I’ll get a few boos and that will spur me on,” said Sharp, who, as well as scoring 53 times in 80 appearances for the Iron, has also found the net regularly as a visiting player, including three times for Doncaster in two games.

“I’ll get plenty of boos. The referee booked me against Coventry, but I don’t mind that – I like playing on the edge, it gets your emotions going.

“I like to stay on the edge.

“I’ve not been getting the rub of the green, (but) Sunday I got it.

“Hopefully now I can go on a little bit of a run. That’s how it usually works for me.

“The gaffer (Adkins) left me out, maybe it was the right decision, but, hopefully, I’ve given him a reminder with the goal.

“It’s all part of football. He told me I’m not going to be happy, which I wasn’t, so just make an impact when you come on and I’d like to think I’ve done that.”

United won ugly against Coventry, a trait they have perhaps lacked in their repeated failures to get out of the third tier.

“We’ve been saying the harder you work the luckier you get, and we got lucky on Sunday,” continued Sharp.

“Winning breeds confidence and that’s what we’ve been low on.

“Coventry play some nice football, but we frustrated them, which a lot of teams have done to us over the months, and, hopefully, we can learn from that; how we can set up against other teams and play the game instead of thinking we have to score early.

“Against Coventry, it was a case of staying in the game and then going and nicking it. It was a good learning curve for us.”